/ir 


THE    STRUGGLE    FOR 
IMMORTALITY 


BY 


CO  arzi^  nt^ ,  ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS  > 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1889 


Copyright,  1889, 
Br  ELIZABETH  STUART  PHELPS  WARD. 

All  rights  reserved. 


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The  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge,  Mass.,U.  S.A. 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  H.  O.  Hougliton  &  Co. 


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CONTENTS. 
♦    ■ 

PAGK 

I.  What  is  a  Fact  ? 1 

II.  Is  God  Good? 32 

III.  What  does  Revelation  Reveal? 79 

IV.  The  Struggle  for  Immortality 119 

V.  The  Christianity  of  Christ 160 

VI.  The  Psychical  Opportunity 195 

VII.  The  Psychical  Wave 223 


***  Several  of  these  essays  are  reprinted  from  "  The 
North  American  Review  "  and  "  The  Forum." 


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STKUGGLE    FOR    IMMDETALITY. 


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I. 

WHAT  IS  A  FACT  ? 

This  is  a  noisy  age.  The  dreamer  can  find 
no  sacred  silence  in  which  to  hide  his  fantasy. 
The  thinker  may  double-lock  his  study  door, 
but  the  winds  of  heaven  will  pilfer  his  thoughts 
from  him  through  the  window,  and  the  birds 
of  the  air  will  carry  the  matter ;  if  they  do 
not,  the  world  concludes  that  there  was  none 
to  carry.  The  believer,  too,  is  tremulous  to 
the  vibrations  of  the  atmosphere.  His  mys- 
ticism and  quietism  come  by  the  hardest.  If 
lie  have  a  faith,  he  feels  that  he  must  believe 
aloud.  On  every  hand  the  air  is  quick  with 
clamors.  The  "  advanced  mind  "  shouts  to  the 
scientist.  The  theologian  thunders  at  the  in- 
fidel. The  ecclesiastic  menaces  the  liberal 
Christian.     The  philosopher  sneers  at  each. 


2  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

Representing  none  of  these  wise  and  urgent 
people,  the  writer  of  this  fragment  is  moved 
t»,'  say .' a' "^bErCi  .'concerning  that  considerable 
.portion,  oi  humanity  who  walk  outside  the  cir- 
^  '^  '  'cla  Qp  this'  portentous  amphitheatre,  yet  near 
enough  to  be  alert  to  its  contests  as  well  as 
deafened  by  its  din.  To  these  honest,  quiet, 
and  thoughtful  people,  who  in  all  militant  eras 
press  nearest  to  the  combatants,  constituting 
at  once  their  busiest  critics  and  truest  friends, 
it  seems,  if  I  mistake  not,  as  if  the  main  ques- 
tion in  dispute  were  one  uncommonly  easy  to 
ask  and  uncommonly  hard  to  answer. 

It  is  a  long  time  ago  since  our  great-grand- 
fathers were  crossing  lances  over  the  doctrine 
of  imputed  sin,  or  the  souls  of  infants  con- 
demned by  predestination  and  foreknowledge 
absolute  to  an  eternal  hell.  A  damned  baby 
at  best  was  a  theory.     Nobody  ever  saw  one. 

This  is  not  the  age  of  theory  ;  hence  we  long 
since  took  our  babies  to  be  blessed  by  One 
who  thought  it  worth  while  to  mention  the 
fact  that  of  such  was  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Thus  we  care  no  more  whether  we  are  to  be 
punished  for  the  sin  of  Adam,  having  enough 
of  our  own  to  look  to,  to  say  nothing  of  the 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  3 

additional  doubt  whether  Adam  himself  can  be 
called  a  fact.  This,  we  find,  is  the  age  of  fact. 
No  one  asks  to-day,  What  is  your  theory  ?  but, 
Where  is  your  fact  ? 

So,  at  least,  it  seems  to  these  good  people  of 
whom  I  speak,  who  compose  what  we  call  "  the 
masses "  of  the  church  and  the  world.  The 
young  man  of  business,  who  sits  under  your 
preaching  from  Sunday  to  Sunday,  Reverend 
sir,  watches  you  with  a  keen  but  yet  with  a 
slightly  saddened  eye.  Whether  this  be  an  age 
for  the  encouragement  of  faith  or  the  preser- 
vation of  doctrine  he  is  not  sure.  Whether  he 
has  fallen  upon  an  era  of  inductive  or  deduc-  iX 

tive  reasoning  he  does  not  know ;  it  is  prob- 
able that  he  does  not  care.  But,  that  forces 
which  he  does  not  understand  are  threatening 
faiths  that  he  reveres,  he  does  know ;  and  for 
this,  in  a  downright,  manly  fashion,  he  does 
care  very  much  indeed. 

The  thoughtful  woman  at  the  head  of  the 
crowded  Bible  class  which  has  given  such 
celebrity  to  your  Sunday-school  is  puzzled,  too. 
She  no  longer  finds  Barnes's  Notes  adequate 
to  the  religious  difficulties  of  her  observant, 
critical,  restless  pupils  ;  she  no  longer  teaches. 


4  WHAT  JS  A  FACT? 

either,  that  the  world  was  made  in  six  days, 
or  that  the  majority  of  the  human  race  are 
doomed  by  a  loving  Father  to  an  eternal  strug- 
gle with  a  lake  of  material  fire.  She  has  heard 
the  authenticity  of  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  even 
the  original  authorship  of  the  Golden  Rule 
called  in  question.  She  has  a  general  impres- 
sion that  Darwin  is  to  blame,  and  that  geology 
is  at  the  bottom  of  the  trouble.  She  finds 
this,  however,  less  satisfactory  as  an  argument 
than  might  be,  when  her  pet  convert,  nineteen 
wise  years  of  age,  announces  that  he  will  im- 
mediately become  a  free-thinker,  on  the  ground 
that,  next  to  immorality,  there  is  nothing  he  so 
much  prays  to  be  delivered  from  as  supersti- 
tion. Perhaps  she  learns,  as  some  of  us  have, 
to  assume  in  general  the  uselessness  of  discus- 
sion with  the  initial  moods  of  "  emancipated 
minds." 

So,  perhaps,  our  friend,  the  young  pew- 
owner,  feeling  himself  unable  to  hold  his 
ground  with  the  fellows  at  the  club,  yet  all  the 
fonder  of  the  faith  which  he  cannot  defend,  as 
the  father  is  of  the  child  whom  he  sees  sur- 
rendering to  a  stealthy  disease,  saddens  a  little 
more  and  more,  but  joins  himself  to  the  great 


WHAT  18  A  FACTf  5 

rank  and  file  of  the  silent  believers,  who  try 
to  be  good  fellows,  and  hope   the  Lord  will  \/ 

clear  things  up  some  day.  He  thinks  it  would 
be  natural  to  be  able  to  give  good  reasons  for 
believing  anything  so  important  as  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  —  good  business  reasons,  that 
were  clear  as  the  code  of  ethics  on  'change, 
and  as  much  to  be  respected,  whether  to  be 
obeyed  or  not,  —  but  finds  no  such  reasons 
causing  such  respect,  and  gradually  ceases  to  v/ 

look  for  any. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  a  part  of  the  difficulties 
which  our  friends  meet  would  be  relieved,  if 
they  could  more  distinctly,  or  at  least  more 
clearly,  define  in  their  own  minds  some  start- 
ing-point —  without  agreement  upon  which  it 
is  impossible  to  debate  differences  of  either 
judgment  or  feeling,  and  for  lack  of  which  so 
many  of  our  religious  discussions  are  as  wasted  ^ 

as  the  powder  and  blood  of  Malvern  Hill.  ^. 

The  average  religious  argument  of  to-day 
takes,  perhaps,  some  such  form  as  this,  — 
the  disputants,  we  may  suppose,  not  having 
reached  that  stage  of  familiarity  with  each 
other's  views  at  which  controversy  is  tacitly 
and  mutually  conceded  to  be  no  accretion 
either  to  friendship  or  to  faith. 


6  WHAT  IS  A  FACTf 

The  believer  —  we  use  this  term   and   its 
opposite  as,  on  the  whole,  less  objectionable 
and  more  precise  than  any  others  which  exist- 
ing  religious   conflict    has  popularized  —  the 
believer  begins  by  timidly  expressing  a  hope 
that  the  unbeliever  has  "  found  Christ,"  or  "  is 
a  Christian,"  or  "  is   a  man  of  faith."     The 
unbeliever  promptly  and  not   at   all   timidly 
expresses    his    complete    dissent   from   every 
point  of  conviction  involved  in  these  phrases. 
He  may  do  this  arrogantly  or  sadly,  honestly 
or   shrewdly,    earnestly  or   flippantly,    gently 
or   maliciously,  but  he  does  it  with  decision. 
He  speaks  of  the  scientific  paradoxes  in  the 
"  poem  of  Genesis,"  of  the  morals  of  the  Old 
Testament  saints,  of  the  physical  impossibility 
of  miracles,  of  the  discoveries  of  geology,  of 
personal    imperfections   in   the    character   of 
Jesus,  of  the  superior  nature  of  Socrates,  of 
the  howling  dervish,  the  negro  revivals,  and 
the    damnation    of    children,  —  an    article    of 
faith  which  he  asserts  is  generally  wrought  into 
the  creeds  of  Christian  churches  of  the  present 
day,  and  secretly  disavowed   by  kind-hearted 
but  hypocritical  people,  who  have  not  the  cour- 
age openly  to  combat  so  monstrous  a  doctrine. 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  7 

At  this  point,  the  believer  strikes  in  rather 
warmly,  and  if  he  does  not  reply  that  such  ig- 
norance on  any  other  vital  point  of  contempo- 
rary difference  would  condemn  his  opponent  to 
the  strongest  criticism  of  intelligent  people,  is 
tempted  to  do  so,  and  feels  a  little  out  of  tem- 
per and  a  little  penitent,  and  suggests  that  the 
Bible  is  an  inspired  book,  written  by  God  for 
men  and  through  men,  and  that  we  must 
expect  to  find  difficulties  in  it,  and  earnestly 
and  pointedly  asks.  Where  will  you  find,  on 
the  whole,  a  better  book  for  the  guidance  of 
human  weakness  ? 

The  unbeliever  replies  that  there  is  much 
fine  poetry  in  the  Bible,  but  more  bad  argu- 
ment. Oriental  superstition,  and  confused  met- 
aphor ;  that  many  men  are  inspired ;  that 
Goethe  was  a  divine  man ;  and  that  Brown- 
ing's Paracelsus  is  as  much  a  work  of  inspi- 
ration as  the  Song  of  Solomon,  and  far  more 
moral.  He  adds  that  it  is  impossible  to  recon- 
cile God's  sovereignty  with  man's  freedom  in 
any  such  make-shift  manner  as  that  adopted 
by  the  theologians,  and  that  God  either  cre- 
ated sin,  or  he  did  not ;  that  if  he  did  he  was 
not  benevolent,  and  if  he  did  not  he  was  not 


8  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

omnipotent ;  and  that  we  are  made  to  cultivate 
our  manhood,  express  our  individuality,  and 
study  the  secrets  of  nature. 

The  believer  suggests  that  it  may  be  possi- 
ble we  do  not,  as  finite  beings,  understand  all 
the  mysteries  in  the  nature  of  an  infinite  God ; 
that  it  is  not  to  be  wondered  at  if  we  must 
leave  some  points  unexplained ;  that  this  is 
perhaps  a  part  of  the  discipline  necessary  to  fit 
us  for  the  eternal  life. 

The  unbeliever  hastens  to  say  that  of  the 
eternal  life  we  know  absolutely  nothing,  —  we 
cannot  conceive  of  either  beginning  or  end ; 
that  we  are  here  and  know  it,  but  further  than 
this  we  have  no  right  to  infer.  We  may  cher- 
ish immortality  only  as  a  "  solemn  hope  "  (the 
believer's  eyes  fill,  and  he  mentally  ejaculates, 
"  Poor  fellow !  "),  or  we  may  expect  to  be  as 
the  beasts  that  perish,  and  live  on  in  the  forces 
of  nature,  and  the  resurrection  of  the  seasons, 
and  the  memories  of  unborn  generations,  and 
so  on,  but  that  geology  is  making  every  hour 
discoveries  which  are  to  revolutionize  belief; 
that  hope,  faith,  love,  and  the  energies  of  im- 
agination are  beautiful  fancies,  but  rocks  are 
facts,  and  therefore  (as  nearly  as  the  believer 


WBAT  IS  A  FACT?  9 

can  understand)  he  urges  that  we  cling  to  the 
rocks. 

The  believer  suggests  that  rocks  are  cold 
comfort ;  to  the  bereaved,  for  instance,  or  the 
remorseful. 

The  unbeliever  replies,  vaguely,  that  he  is 
not  sure,  either,  that  we  comprehend  the  differ- 
ence between  infinite  or  finite  —  Finite  ?  In- 
finite ?  He  is  not  certain  that  there  is  any  in- 
finite, or  that  he  himself,  in  short,  is  finite  — 
but  that  science  —    And  so  on,  and  so  on. 

Now,  all  this  is  firing  wild.  There  is  no 
gold  in  the  target.  There  shows  no  target  in 
the  mist.  If  we  set  our  aim  in  a  fog-bank, 
who  is  to  decide  whether  we  have  hit  ? 

The  believer  may  seek  to  "  save  "  the  unbe- 
liever in  this  fashion  till  "  the  eve  of  the  day 
of  the  Last  Awaking,"  —  he  will  only  irritate. 
The  doubting  may  try  to  "  reason  "  with  the 
trusting  on  this  wise,  till  his  tongue  returns  to 
the  dust  that  he  claims  his  kin  to,  —  he  can 
only  depress.  The  disputants  have  swerved 
from  the  most  elementary  of  the  principles  of 
logic.  They  have  discovered  no  major  premise 
in  common.  They  must  agree  upon  something 
before    they  can  disagree  intelligently  about 


10  WHAT  JS  A  FACTf 

anything.  There  can  be  no  dispute  without  a 
basis  of  harmony.  "  We  may  never,  perhaps," 
as  Hamilton  says,  "  arrive  at  truth,  but  we 
can  always  avoid  self-contradiction." 

Let  us  now  suppose,  as  it  is  the  object  of 
this  paper  to  suggest,  that  these  two  equally 
earnest  people  ask  of  each  other,  at  the  outset 
of  all  sincere  and  serious  discussion,  one  sim- 

^        pie  question  :  What  is  a  Fact  f 

The  believer,  we  will  assume,  happens  to  put 
the  query.  The  unbeliever  hesitates.  Neither 
of  the  disputants  are  psychological  scholars. 
Both  are  intelligently  educated.  The  unbe- 
liever is  the  more  accustomed  of  the  two, 
probably,  to  sophistries  of  discussion.  He 
perceives  the  importance  of  the  point,  and 
hesitates.  It  is  one  of  the  maxims  of  civil 
law  that  definitions  are  hazardous.  After  a 
thoughtful  pause,  he  replies,  with  the  blunt 
courage  of  common  sense,  which  is  quite  as  apt 
to  hit  the  truth  as  the  sharply  refined  point  of 
the  artist  in  philosophical  language,  that  he 

^         should  say  a  fact  was  a  thing  that  could  be 
verified. 

To   this   the    believer,    without    hesitation, 
agrees.   All  he  claims,  he  adds,  is  that  religion 


WHAT  IS  A   FACTf  H 

is  a  matter  of  fact  as  well  as  science.  Grant 
this,  he  urges,  and  we  can  pursue  our  discus- 
sion. Deny  it,  and  the  sooner  we  agree  to  dis- 
agree the  better.  The  believer's  own  vision 
has  begun  to  clarify,  with  this  closer  exactness 
of  definition,  and  his  method  of  expression  in- 
tensifies. 

The  unbeliever  replies,  with  animation,  that 
it  is  impossible  to  put  religion  and  science 
upon  the  same  foot-hold.  We  have,  he  urges, 
reached  the  age  of  reason  —  at  last.  It  is  no 
longer  practicable  for  intelligent  men  to  bend 
their  necks  to  the  yoke  of  superstition.  We 
deal  no  more  with  a  realm  of  fancy.  Jesus 
was  a  rhapsodist.  Christianity  was  full  of 
poetry.  It  appealed  to  the  imaginative  era. 
We  have  passed  by  the  birth-time  of  great 
poets.  Literature  acknowledges  it.  We  do 
not  now  write  epics.  We  invent  the  phono- 
graph. Machinery,  discovery,  action,  have 
replaced  reverie,  credulity,  and  dreams.     We  y 

no  longer  pray.  We  telegraph.  We  have  no 
time  to  sing  psalms.  We  are  engaged  in  the 
artificial  propagation  of  fish.  Why  should  we 
attend  church  when  we  can  await  the  spon- 
taneous generation  of  animalculae  in  a  bottle 
of  boiled  water  ? 


J 


12  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

At  this  point  the  listener  smiles,  and  the 
speaker  breaks  off  with  some  irritation.  He 
sees  nothing  to  smile  at.  He  is  very  much, 
in  earnest.  These  are  serious  subjects  which 
he  has  mentioned.  He  is  indeed  more  logical 
than  he  had  seemed,  and  abruptly  turning 
upon  his  opponent  says,  — 

You  ask  me  for  my  facts.  I  find  them  in 
the  investigation  of  nature.  Observe  them. 
They  alone  are  worthy  of  confidence.  We 
seek,  we  study,  we  combine,  we  infer.  The 
human  mind  was  created  — 

By  whom  ?  interrupts  the  believer. 

Consistently,  the  unbeliever  replies  that  he 
does  not  know.  The  powers  of  nature,  for- 
merly called  God,  have  not  yet  fully  revealed 
themselves  to  our  ken.  I  believe  nothing  that 
I  do  not  understand.  I  will  not  accept  what 
I  cannot  prove.  This  is  the  first  duty  of  the 
human  reason.  Man  should  receive  only  what 
he  knows.  I  find  myself  a  mysterious  being 
in  a  mysterious  condition.  My  business  is  to 
investigate  my  condition.  Whether  there  be 
another  world  is  none  of  my  concern.  No  eye 
has  seen  it,  no  foot  has  returned  from  it,  no 
voice  has  spoken  from  it ;  it  is  an  absolutely 


WHAT  JS  A   FACTf  ^g 

unproved,  and  therefore  unprovable,  hypothe- 
sis. I  find  myself  in  the  present  world.  I 
have  occupation  in  the  study  of  my  limitations. 
There  are  mountains,  the  sea,  the  stars,  the 
earth.  There  are  geology,  astronomy,  the 
nautical  sciences,  the  study  of  human  diseases, 
the  mysteries  and  cultus  of  the  physical  organ- 
ization. I  learn  from  the  fossil  and  the  scal- 
pel. The  telescope  and  the  microscope,  the 
chart  and  the  battery,  command  my  attention. 
These  give  me  the  undeniable.  Exact  inves- 
tigation presents  me  with  my  facts.  Beyond 
a  fact  I  am  not  justified  in  going. 

Where    is    God  ?     Can  you   handle    him  ? 
What  is  prayer  ?     Go  weigh  it  for  me  !     An 
immortal  soul  ?     My  microscope  has  never  re- 
vealed it.    A  fact  is  a  thing  revealed  or  reveal-         \    / 
able  to  my  senses.    Science  alone  is  knowledge.  \ 

Religion  is  superstition.  Superstition  is  bond- 
age. I  decline  to  be  fettered.  Christianity 
is  slavery.  I  choose  freedom.  Exact  thought 
is  my  master.^     And  thus,  and  thus,  and  thus. 

1  "He  could  not  accept  Christianity,"  said  Renan  of 
Spinoza  (I  quote  from  memory),  at  a  celebration  in  honor 
of  that  philosopher's  memory.  "  He  could  not  thus  surren- 
der his  liberty.     Descartes  was  his  master  "  / 


14  WHAT  JS  A  FACT? 

As  the  discussion  waxes,  the  believer  is  op- 
pressed more  and  more  with  the  hopelessness, 
but  not  the  helplessness  of  his  effort.  In  pro- 
portion as  he  learns  the  difficulty  of  dissuading 
a  man  from  views  hardened  as  they  are  ac- 
quired by  the  friction  of  dissent  from  heredi- 
tary faiths,  he  gains  nerve  for  his  own  processes 
of  thought,  and  muscle  for  his  own  maturing 
belief.  If  nothing  more  comes  out  of  the  con- 
versation, his  faith  at  least  is  stouter  for  it.  If 
he  has  not  "  converted  "  the  free-thinker,  he 
has  himself  become  a  better  Christian. 

He  who  believes  much  has  always  the  ad- 
vantage over  him  who  believes  little  or  noth- 
ing. Faith  is  the  positive,  as  skepticism  is 
a  negation.  He  who  affirms  intelligently  and 
earnestly  carries  by  a  sheer  moral  propulsion, 
as  irresistible  as  the  channel  of  Niagara,  a 
power,  not  unlike  the  primal  awe  of  nature, 
over  him  who  denies. 

Let  us  hope  that  our  believer  returns  upon 
his  antagonist  a  few  ringing  words,  to  which 
there  can  be  no  more  convincing  reply  than 
the  eternal  and  unassailable  finality :  I  do  not 
agree  with  you. 

You  seek,  the  believer  says,  the  truth,  —  the 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  15 

whole  and  holy  and  invulnerable  truth.  I  seek 
no  other.  You  desire  a  religion  of  facts.  I 
also  wish  the  same.  You  demand  that  we  con- 
struct belief  from  reason.  I,  too,  prefer  a  rea- 
son for  my  conclusions.  You  claim  that  you 
alone  possess  a  basis  of  fact,  since  you  only  re- 
strict yourself  to  what  is  known.  You  claim 
that  you  find  the  known  alone  in  physical  man- 
ifestations, their  formulae  and  solutions.  I 
deny  your  claim. 

I  deny  your  claim,  because  (you  will  pardon 
me)  of  what  seems  to  me  its  ignorance.  You 
forget,  or  you  have  never  learned,  that  truth  is 
no  niggard,  and  that  science  is  a  broad  and 
bounteous  term.  It  is  not  alone  in  the  hard 
bosom  of  the  rock  that  the  Eternal  rests.  It 
is  not  only  in  the  fumes  of  the  laboratory  that 
the  breath  of  the  devout  seeker  exhales.  There 
are  trained  intellects  that  are  not  occupied 
with  the  germ  theory,  or  with  the  latest  trea- 
tise on  the  parasites  of  an  unfortunate  plant. 
There  are  students,  as  there  are  scholars,  of 
other  than  material  knowledges.  You  forget 
that  there  are  to  be  found  other  than  the  phy- 
sical sciences.  You  forget  that  the  history  of 
these  other  sciences   commemorates  much  of 


/ 


t/ 


16  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

the  highest  order  of  intellect,  the  most  precise 
training,  the  most  generous  culture,  the  most 
candid  research,  and  the  purest  sacrifice  of  self 
in  the  investigation  of  truth  that  human  life 
has  known. 

You  forget,  in  short  (or  you  have  never 
learned),  that  the  mental  sciences  exist. 
You  have  not  remembered  that  there  is  a 
philosophy  of  mind,  as  there  is  of  matter; 
that  there  is  a  philosophy  of  soul,  as  there  is  of 
sense. 

One  need  not  be  a  very  learned  person  to  re- 
call the  facts  that  the  sciences  of  ethics,  of  in- 
tellectual philosophy  (even  of  theology,  though 
for  the  sake  of  controversial  comfort  we  may 
waive  that  irritating  illustration),  have  still 
respectable  positions  in  the  world  of  thought, 
quite  in  rank  with  mathematics  or  chemistry. 
It  has  slipped  your  mind,  for  the  moment,  that 
there  is  a  study  of  Metaphysics  as  well  as  of 
Physics,  You  have  not  articulately  under- 
stood that  a  sufficient  culture  overlooks  neither 
the  existence  of  these  two  forms  of  human 
knowledge,  nor  their  relative  importance  and 
adjustment  to  each  other. 

And  this  leads  me  to  say  (once  more  I  pray 


WFIAT  IS  A  FACT?    ,  17 

your  courtesy)  that  I  deny  your  claim  because 
of  what  seems  to  me  its  arrogance. 

One  need  not  be  very  learned,  I  repeat,  to 
understand  something  of  the  debt  which  the 
students  of  matter  owe  to  the  students  of  mind. 
You  and  I  are  not  learned,  only  intelligent 
people,  and  the  intelligent  have  heard  some- 
thing of  Socrates,  of  Aristotle,  of  Bacon ;  of 
him  who  (humanly  speaking),  it  might  be  said, 
created  exact  thought,  of  him  who  developed  it, 
of  him  who  reconstructed  it.  Mental  science, 
as  we  know,  was  by  centuries  the  elder  born, 
and  father  of  physical  science,  in  any  modern 
signification  of  the  word  ;  as  the  brain  is  the 
creator  and  guide  of  the  movements  of  the 
hand  or  foot.^ 

To  ignore  the  parental  influence  of  meta- 
physical upon  physical  study  is  a  species  of 
filial  ingratitude  which  it  is  impossible  to  de- 
scribe by  a  smooth  adjective.  The  very  pro- 
cesses of  thought  by  which  you  are  trained  to 
investigate  the  material  fact,  you  owe  to  ances- 

1  Indeed,  the  believer  might  add,  we  are  told  by  scholars 
that  the  father  of  modern  intuitionalism  was  the  father  of 
modem  mathematics  as  well.  Descartes  was  the  first  of  our 
scientists  to  study  mind  in  the  dissecting-room. 


U' 


18  WFAT  IS  A  FACTf 

tral  centuries  of  mental  discipline  and  to  apos- 
tles of  mental  science.  You  speak  of  conscious 
and  sub-conscious  cerebration.  You  deny  the 
mental  entity  which  you  once  called  a  human 
soul.  What  enables  your  prompt  lip  to  utter 
the  challenge  ?  Whence  comes  your  power  to 
deny  ? 

I  do  not  express  these  things  in  philosophi- 
cal language,  for,  as  I  have  reminded  you,  we 
are  neither  of  us  learned  people,  but  I  desire 
to  make  you  understand  in  a  plain  and  direct 
fashion  that  which  I  desire  to  say.  Is  it  be- 
coming, I  ask,  is  it  the  modesty  of  wisdom, 
for  the  instrument  to  ignore  the  influence  ? 
Shall  the  microscope  and  the  retort  say  to  the 
1/  eye  or  the  hand,  "  We  have  no  need  of  thee"  ? 

Shall  the  probe  say  to  the  surgeon,  "  Go  to ! 
It  is  I  who  tear  or  torture,  as  it  is  I  who  heal 
and  save "  ?  Speaking  of  his  scientific  con- 
freres, one  of  the  most  distinguished  phy- 
sicians whom  this  country  has  known  said, 
"  They  cannot  account  for  the  '  Z'  " 
I  In  short,  it  seems  to  me  that  when  a  man 

I  exalts  the  science  of  things  which  are  seen  and 
touched  over  the  science  of  that  which  sees  and 
touches  ;  when  he  prefers  to  mistake  a  convo- 


/ 


WHAT  JS  A  FACT?  19 

lution  in  the  brain  for  that  by  which  the  con- 
volution becomes  able  to  think,  feel,  and  act, 
—  nay,  by  which  alone  it  is  enabled  to  make 
the  mistake ;  when  he  selects  the  less  for  the 
greater,  the  lower  for  the  loftier,  matter  for 
mind,  brain  for  soul,  he  exhibits  the  presump- 
tion of  the  servant,  sent  by  his  master  to  cash 
a  check  of  important  value,  who  struts  as  if 
the  money  were  his  own. 

I  object  to  your  claim  because,  once  more,  n 
I  perceive  it  to  be  a  degrading  one.  It  is 
not  necessary  to  be  great  ourselves  to  know 
that  the  great  natures  of  the  earth  have  been 
believing  natures.  Even  you  and  I  can  re- 
member that  music,  poetry,  art,  philosophy, 
literature,  nay,  physics  itself,  owe  something 
to  faith.  It  is  not  easy  to  forget  that  Bee- 
thoven, Mozart,  Bach,  Handel,  Haydn,  Mil- 
ton, Dante,  Wordsworth,  Raphael  and  Michael 
Angelo,  Plato  and  Immanuel  Kant  and  Leib- 
nitz, Goethe  and  Shakespeare,  Kepler  and 
Newton,  were  believers  in  the  existence  of  God 
and  the  immaterial  nature  and  immortal  des- 
tiny of  the  human  spirit.  It  might .  be  com- 
paratively easy  to  prove  that  you  and  I  had 
no  souls ;  to  deny  one  to  these  people  I  have 


20  WHAT  JS  A  FACT? 

mentioned  were  to  go  as  far  as  anything  could, 
perhaps,  to  prove  that  you  are  right,  and  that 
we,  at  least,  are  destitute  of  any. 

Degrading,  I  say,  —  degrading  to  the  deeps 
below  all  that  is  truly  fine,  all  that  is  del- 
icately observant,  all  that  is  highly  reveren- 
tial, all  that  is  nobly  receptive,  all  that  is  ca- 
pable of  assimilating  the  ideal,  the  beautiful, 
the  lofty,  and  the  large  in  human  history,  — 
is  that  view  of  human  mystery  which  your 
claim  presents.  It  may  be  either  the  cause  or 
the  consequence  of  this  view  that  you  flip- 
pantly ignore  the  testimony  of  the  great  teach- 
ers of  human  life.  You  decline  to  sit  at  the 
feet  of  the  prophets,  priests,  and  kings  of  the 
world.  You  turn  your  back  upon  the  heights ; 
on  art,  on  inspiration,  on  intuition,  on  im- 
agination, on  aspiration,  on  song,  on  the 
sources  of  all  that  makes  men  clear  and  keen 
iu  brain,  refined  and  pure  in  heart.  For  re- 
member that  if  you  seek  to  share  these  things 
they  are  no  longer  properly  yours.  They  are 
not,  they  never  were,  they  never  can  be,  the 
products  of  a  materialistic  philosophy.  If  this 
is  not  clear  to  you,  it  seems  to  me  that  your 
location  quite  as  well  as  your  attitude  puts  a 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  21 

finely  and  simply  outlined  truth  out  of  per- 
spective to  you.  He  who  climbs,  sees.  "  To 
him,  as  to  Moses,"  says  a  French  scholar, 
"  secrets  unknown  to  the  rabble  are  revealed 
upon  the  mountain-top." 

You  sit,  then,  and  adjust  yourself  to  the 
valley.  You  burrow,  you  dig,  you  descend. 
Choosing  the  company  of  the  lowest  forms  of 
manifestation,  you  will  find  that  the  influence 
of  their  atmosphere  is  upon  you.  If  a  human 
mind  keeps  the  exclusive  society  of  vegetables 
and  insects  and  fossils,  is  it  to  be  wondered 
at  that  it  fails  to  see  the  transfigured  cloud 
which  veils,  while  defining,  the  motions  of  the 
eternal  sun?  If  a  man's  corroding  ambition 
is  to  be  quoted  as  an  "  authority  on  potato- 
bugs,"  he  7nay  be  a  sensitive  appreciator  of 
Locke's  Essay  on  the  Understanding,  or  the 
"  Excursion  "  of  the  Lake  Poet,  or  the  Gospel 
of  John ;  but  does  it  sur23rise  us  if  he  is  not  ? 

Pardon  once  more  my  plainness  if  I  tell  you 
that  I  cannot  accept  your  claim,  because  it 
seems  to  me  not  unlike  the  scoff  of  the  dem- 
onstrator in  the  dissecting-room.  His  busi- 
ness leads  him  to  handle  flesh.  How,  then, 
should  God  be  a  spirit  ? 


\^ 


y 


22  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

I  have  somewhat,  too,  to  affirm.  You  have 
called  my  attention  to  your  facts  ;  I  should  be 
glad  to  acquaint  you  with  mine.  Yours,  I  ac- 
cept; it  is  your  conclusions  which  I  refuse. 
I  do  not  question  the  evolution  of  the  species, 
or  the  zymotic  theory  of  diseases,  or  the  exist- 
ence of  the  last  comet,  or  the  possibilities  of 
the  photophone,  or  the  discoveries  of  psycho- 
physics  as  affecting  the  criminal  or  the  insane. 
Physical  science  is  welcome  to  do  her  best  or 
her  worst  by  helpless  spectators  like  yourself 
or  me.  A  fact  is  a  fact,  though  it  deal  with 
the  lowest  phases  of  nature,  and  truth  is  holy, 
whether  she  hide  in  a  stalactite  or  an  epic, 
a  jelly-fish  or  an  oratorio,  a  vivisection  or  a 
prayer.  I  accept  your  facts,  retaining  the 
liberty  to  draw  my  own  conclusions.  I  only 
ask  that  you  (retaining,  of  course,  the  same 
liberty)  accept  my  facts  before  we  close  or 
continue  this  discussion. 

Of  this,  then,  I  would  remind  you.  The 
manifestations  of  mind  are  at  least  as  much 
to  be  respected  as  the  manifestations  of  mat- 
ter. He  was  a  real  philosopher  who  gave  to 
his  book  the  title,  Man  in  his  Connection  with 
the  Human  Body.     What  we  think  and  feel 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  23 

is  as  genuine  as  what  we  see  and  touch.  If  I 
handle  a  chair  or  table,  my  thought  of  them  Is 
as  individual  as  the  table  or  the  chair.  If  I 
take  a  pen  to  write  these  words,  that  which 
creates  the  words  is  as  real  as  the  pen.  "  I 
am  the  soul  of  the  music,"  said  a  musician, 
when  his  string  snapped.  "  Though  the  strings 
are  all  broken,  the  music  is  thereJ^  Let  me 
add  (for  you  will  remind  me  that  I  do  not 
touch  the  pulse  of  your  difficulty)  that  my 
thought  is  as  real  as  the  brain-cells  by  whose 
activity  I  am  empowered  to  think  it. 

Thus,  if  I  listen  to  music  which  dissuades 
me  from  temptation,  or  lifts  me  from  gloom, 
or  leads  me  to  despair,  these  emotions  exist  as  V 
much  as  the  ivory  of  the  piano  keys,  or  the 
catgut  of  the  violin,  or  the  gray  matter  in  the 
cerebrum  which  the  piano,  the  violin,  and  the 
emotion  set  in  agitation.  I  am  at  least  as 
justified  in  assertion,  as  you  in  denial  of  these 
facts.  Explain  them  as  you  will.  I  offer 
them  as  facts.  As  such  —  until  you  can  prove 
that  "  thought  is  phosphorus  and  phosphorus 
is  thought,"  ivithout  the  predominant  action 
of  your  mind  in  making  that  hypothesis  — 
they  ought  to  be  by  you  respected. 


24  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

There  is  a  form  of  the  mental  life  which 
we  call  spiritual.  This  is  the  highest,  as  it  is 
the  finest,  phase  of  the  mystery  that  we  name 
existence.  Coleridge  expressed  what  I  mean 
when  he  said  that  "  faith  is  itself  a  higher  rea- 
son, and  corrects  the  errors  of  reason  as  rea- 
son corrects  the  errors  of  sense."  As  the 
physical  life  is  revealed  by  its  phenomena,  as 
the  mental  life  possesses  its  expression,  so  the 
spiritual  life  has  its  manifestation.  This  is  a 
fact.     As  such  it  is  to  be  respected. 

As  we  depend  upon  the  senses  to  make  clear 
to  us  the  presence  of  the  sunrise,  as  we  rely 
upon  the  reason  to  explain  to  us  the  nature  of 
a  thought,  so  we  lean  upon  faith  to  reveal  to 
us  the  nature  of  a  spirit. 

While  the  eye  brings  to  us  the  color  of  the 
dawn,  it  can  do  no  more ;  the  optic  nerve  of 
an  idiot,  though  it  quiver  in  precise  obedience 
to  the  laws  of  his  physical  organism,  for  three- 
score years  and  ten,  will  never  reveal  to  him 
the  rapture  of  the  morning.  Sense  and  reason 
must  act  together.  So  the  reason,  left  to  it- 
self, informs  us  of  the  character  of  the  thought 
or  of  the  feeling  which  we  have  about  the  sun- 
rise ;  then  it  comes,  and  there  it  must  come, 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  25 

against  its  limitation.  The  intellect  of  a  skep- 
tic, though  he  cultivate  it  till  he  is  in  his 
grave,  will  never  produce  a  prayer  for  the 
guidance,  or  endurance,  or  delight  of  the  day 
that  is  about  to  be  his.  Reason  and  faith  must 
work  together.  So,  we  might  add,  faith,  as  a 
disconnected  faculty,  cannot  result  in  true  de- 
votion. Unless  guided  by  reason,  the  devotee 
may  become  a  howling  dervish,  or  a  hysteric 
nun.  The  sense,  the  mind,  and  the  spirit  must 
live  together. 

Like  the  life  physical,  like  the  life  intel- 
lectual, the  spiritual  life,  while  yet  confessing 
an  interdependence  upon  these  other  forms  of 
life,  possesses,  like  them,  an  individual  ex- 
istence. 

"  My  soul  to  me  a  kingdom  is."  In  this 
kingdom  there  are  laws  :  there  is  obedience  or 
disobedience  ;  there  is  anarchy  or  order ;  there 
is  the  separation  of  government ;  there  is  the 
history  of  growth  or  decline.  This  is  a  fact. 
As  such  it  is  to  be  respected. 

A  broken  physical  law  involves  its  penalty. 
A  denied  intellectual  law  implies  a  punish- 
ment. A  defied  spiritual  law  presumes  its 
retribution. 


26  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

Leap  into  the  ocean ;  no  opposing  law  of 
salvation  interfering,  you  will  drown.  De- 
fraud the  hours  of  rest  for  study  or  for  dissi- 
pation ;  you  lose  the  mental  power  of  control- 
ling natural  sleep.  Contest  against  that  sur- 
render of  the  soul  to  its  Creator  which  we  call 
the  religious  life  ;  the  religious  life  withdraws 
itself  from  you.  Unbelief  closes  over  the  will- 
ing unbeliever  like  the  waves  of  the  sea  or  the 
tides  of  insomnia.  These  are  facts.  As  such 
they  are  to  be  respected. 

Again  :  the  great  law  of  development  is  the 
law  of  action.  Every  natural  power  grows  by 
exercise.  Any  school-boy  knows  that  he  can 
create  the  iron  ball  of  muscle  on  his  arm  only 
by  the  use  and  training  of  the  muscle.  Any 
college  girl  understands  that  the  various  fac- 
ulties of  the  brain  become  serviceable  only 
through  action,  as  they  become  through  inac- 
tion inert.  As  with  the  brawn,  as  with  the 
brain,  so  with  the  spirit. 

To  exercise  spiritual  power  is  to  develop 
and  strengthen  it.  To  disuse  it  is  to  repress 
or  extinguish  it. 

Now,  then,  I  ask  you  to  remember  that  we 
who  believe,  speak  to  you  out  of  a  condition 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  27 

whose  government  you  have  defied  or  ignored  ; 
and  that  we  speak  of  a  faculty  whose  exercise 
you  have  disused.  If  we  mention  the  spiritual 
life,  we  mention  that  of  which  you  are  not  a 
citizen,  but  an  exile  ;  whether  by  deliberate 
choice  or  chance  misfortune  is  not  to  the  im- 
mediate purpose,  —  you  are  exiled.  You  have 
not  the  citizen's  right  of  judgment  concerning 
our  affairs.  You  are  incompetent  to  criticise 
this  life,  because  you  are  not  in  it.  Thus,  too, 
if  we  refer  to  spiritual  power,  we  refer  to 
that  which  you  do  not  possess,  because  you  do 
not  train  it ;  whether  by  accident  or  design  is 
not  at  present  to  the  point,  —  your  spiritual 
faculties  are  uneducated.  You  are  disqualified 
from  apprehending  truth  by  means  of  powers 
which  you  have  atrophied  by  disuse.  These 
are  facts  ;  as  such  they  ought  to  be  respected. 
Within  this  spiritual  life,  by  means  of  ex- 
ercised spiritual  faculties  acting  upon  and 
acted  upon  by  our  reason,  we  who  believe 
cherish  certain  spiritual  facts.  God  is  one  of 
these  facts.  The  immortality  of  human  souls 
is  another.  The  responsibility  of  conscience 
is  yet  a  third.  The  hope  of  a  happy  life  ever- 
lasting is  to  be  counted.    The  reasonableness  of 


28  WHAT  IS  A  FACTf 

Revelation  we  add.  The  saneness  and  use- 
fulness of  prayer  we  have  certified.  To  the 
power  of  the  personal  life  of  Jesus  Christ  we 
thrill  to  offer  witness.  To  the  facts  of  for- 
given sin  and  comforted  bereavement  we  bear 
testimony.  Is  not  a  penitent  and  christianized 
thief  as  demonstrable  as  a  clam  or  a  comet? 
Is  not  the  ecstasy  of  a  martyr  as  real  as  the 
fagots  that  burn  him  ?  Is  not  the  resignation 
of  the  desolate  mourner  as  much  a  matter  of 
proof  as  the  coffin  or  the  marble  sleeper  over 
which  he  weeps  ? 

And  yet  but  once  again.  As  the  body  has 
its  senses,  so  has  the  soul.  Burns  speaks  of 
"  those  senses  of  the  mind  "  by  which  great 
religious  truths  are  apprehended.  Spiritual 
truth  is  received  by  spiritual  powers.  Spiritual 
fact  is  perceived  by  the  spiritual  eye,  heard 
by  a  spiritual  ear,  handled  by  spiritual  touch. 
"  The  true  saint,"  says  Dr.  Holmes,  "  can  be 
entirely  apprehended  only  by  saintly  natures." 

We  share  with  you  the  experience  of  the 
exercised  physical  senses,  by  which  you  and 
we  alike  perceive  the  physical  fact.  You  do 
not  as  yet  share  with  us  —  and  we  lay  no 
claim  to  what  is  called  "  saintship  "  in  assert- 


WHAT  IS  A  FACT?  29 

ing  this  —  the  experience  of  the  trained  spir- 
itual sense  by  which  we  receive  the  spiritual 
fact.  To  this  extent  and  for  this  reason,  are 
you  as  far  qualified  for  making  intelligent  de- 
ductions from  our  premises  as  we  for  drawing- 
such  from  yours  ? 

In  asking  you  to  answer  this,  as  an  act  of 
judicial  fairness,  we  cannot  refrain  from  add- 
ing that  it  would  seem  natural  for  a  broad- 
minded  and  intelligent  man  to  feel  a  certain 
discontent  with  the  partial  nature  of  his  de- 
velopment. He  who  trains  his  body  and  ex- 
ercises his  brain,  and  stops  there,  is  imperfect, 
unbalanced,  crude.  He  who  has  not  sought 
to  develop  his  spiritual  nature  is  a  half-edu- 
cated creature. 

Spiritual  power  is  the  flower  of  the  human 
growth.  In  spiritual  character  we  find  the 
highest,  finest,  and  most  complex  form  of  the 
species.  All  other  nature,  whether  physical 
or  mental,  is  embryonic  to  spiritual  nature. 
Spiritual  culture  is  the  culmination  of  human 
education. 

We  ask,  therefore,  evidences  of  this  culture, 
as  the  first  qualification  in  any  man  towards 
his  becoming  a   critic  of  such   nature,  such 


30  WHAT  IS  A  FACT? 

power,  such  character,  or  their  philosophy. 
Failing  of  this  culture,  your  science  should, 
we  submit,  grant  to  our  science  the  respect 
of  ignorance,  if  not  the  attention  of  the  stu- 
dent. 

We  have  known  invalids,  prisoners  of  their 
inert  muscles  during  all  the  bloom  and  bril- 
liance of  life.  Some  late-found  medical  in- 
spiration, some  personal  surrender  of  devotion 
on  the  part  of  a  friend,  some  unexpected  joy 
or  unimagined  grief,  or  even  some  electric 
alarm,  has  allured,  or  shocked,  or  startled  the 
sick  man  to  his  feet. 

The  power  of  motion  was  not  dead,  but  slept. 
Late  and  loath  though  they  be,  the  great  flex- 
ile and  extensor  actions  of  the  great  muscles 
begin.  Between  the  grave  of  his  life  and  the 
grave  of  his  death  the  man  partakes  of  a 
resurrection. 

Such  a  discovery  of  blessedness,  we  may 
suppose,  comes  to  him  who,  after  the  sluggish- 
ness, or  willfulness,  or  disease  of  unbelieving 
years,  is  led  by  the  late  cultivation  of  his  spir- 
itual faculties  to  the  possession  of  spiritual 
truth. 


WHAT  IS  A  FACTf  31 

Facts  before  which  his  intellect  has  been  a 
blank  illuminate  his  consciousness.  Mysteries 
at  which  he  sneered  become  shrines  before 
which  he  kneels.  Powers  which  he  has  not 
hitherto  recognized  magnify  his  nature.  Hopes 
which  he  has  never  known  irradiate  his  life. 
Contrition  that  he  has  not  understood  perme- 
ates his  heart.  Tenderness  which  he  has  never 
approached  gives  pathos,  as  it  gives  purity,  to 
his  past.  A  future  of  which  he  has  never 
dreamed  intensifies  and  glorifies  his  present. 
He  learns  the  value  of  his  own  being,  and  ex- 
periences the  friendship  of  God.  In  the  clos- 
ing days  of  his  history,  as  in  the  final  scenes  of 
the  apocalyptic  vision,  there  are  "  new  heavens 
and  a  new  earth." 


II. 


IS  GOD  GOOD? 


A  TENDENCY  to  ask  irreverent  questions  is 
no  sign  of  strength.  It  is  wholesome  for  us, 
in  this  day  of  facile  defiance  and  hard  accept- 
ance, to  remember  this.  In  an  age  which  fails 
in  deference,  it  is  a  healthful  thing  to  do,  to 
summon  our  spiritual  instincts  to  order.  The 
bust  of  young  Augustus  in  the  shop  window 
wears  a  lung  protector ;  Clytie  serves  to  ad- 
vertise the  "  Boston  battery  ;  "  aod  positivist 
writers  go  out  of  their  way  to  address  Jeho- 
vah by  the  familiar  pronoun  "  you."  We 
have  not  passed  the  period  when  skepticism  is 
more  apt  than  not  to  be  regarded  as  a  proof 
of  superior  intelligence,  but  we  have  reached 
the  stage  at  which  no  intelligent  mind  can 
thus  regard  it,  without  severe  and  honest 
study  of  its  own  motives.  It  is  a  lesson  as 
old  as  Aristotle  that  philosophy  is  not  the  art 
of  doubting,  but  the  art  of  doubting  well. 


IS  GOD   GOOD?  33 

While  the  inclination  to  irreverence,  let  us 
repeat,  is  no  indication  of  mental  robustness, 
the  courage  to  question  accepted  doctrine  may 
be  not  only  a  proof  of  devoutness,  but  the 
condition  of  the  profoundest  submission  to 
truth. 

This  recognition  of  the  inherent  right  of 
every  man  to  have  the  reasons  for  what  he  be- 
lieves, and  to  shake  his  destiny  by  the  shoul- 
ders till  he  gets  such  reasons,  is  postulated  to- 
day, in  educated  thought. 

It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  it  will  not 
be  the  presumptuous  object  of  this  paper  to  try 
to  settle  in  half  a  dozen  pages  that  problem 
which  is  now  the  acknowledged  centre  of  phil- 
osophical divergence :  Given  the  universe,  to 
find  a  Creator.  "  It  takes  me  forty  lectures," 
said  a  professional  metaphysician,  "to  prove 
the  personality  of  God."  Such  things  must 
be.  God  is  none  the  worse  for  it,  or  man, 
either,  perhaps.  The  pulse  will  go  throbbing  ; 
the  blood  will  have  its  bound,  through  the  cut 
flesh  its  escape.  But  even  for  the  terrible  pro- 
test of  the  wound  there  is  the  reply  of  the  liga- 
ture ;  and  behind  the  beat  and  fever  the  mag- 
nificent action  of  the  hidden  heart  goes  on  to 


34  IS   GOB   GOOD? 

save  the  mutilated  life.  We  do  not  make  a 
gloomy  prognosis  of  the  case,  but,  meanwhile, 
prefer  to  surrender  ourselves  to  the  profound 
and  sublime  argument  of  hope.  We  desire 
to  be  understood  as  intelligently  contented  to 
observe  that  design  does  not  exist  without 
a  designer ;  that  moral  nature  implies  moral 
government ;  that  moral  government  means  a 
moral  governor ;  that  human  conscience  be- 
speaks a  greater  than  human  regulator ;  that 
aspiration  involves  an  ideal,  purity  a  model, 
the  child  a  father,  man  God.  We  desire  to  be 
ranked  among  those  simple  souls  who  believe 
that  this  world  never  got  where  it  is  without 
somebody  to  put  it  here.  In  short,  we  find  it, 
of  the  two  difficulties,  so  much  harder  to  ex- 
plain the  nature  of  things  without  God  than 
with  him  that  we  decline  at  present  to  perceive 
that  he  is  no  longer  needed  in  our  affairs. 
Just  before  the  American  civil  war,  a  new  re- 
ligion, it  is  said,  arose  among  the  negro  slaves, 
founded  upon  the  theory  that  God  was  dead. 
Much  of  our  haste  to  dispense  with  him  can 
boast  no  sounder  premises.  ''  I  am  a  priest," 
said  Victor  Hugo's  Cimourdain  ;  "  no  matter, 
I  believe  in  God."     "  God   has   gone  out  of 


IS  GOD   GOOD?  35 

date,"  said  Danton.  "  I  believe  in  God," 
said  Cimourdain,  unmoved. 

So  much  being  understood,  we  may  proceed 
to  remind  ourselves  that  the  mere  fact  of  hav- 
ing a  God  is  of  slight  value  to  us  unless  we 
know  what  kind  of  a  God  he  is. 

The  benevolence  of  the  Creator,  it  is  safe  to 
assert,  was  never  so  thoughtfully  questioned  by 
such  numbers  of  human  beings  as  it  is  to-day. 
Openly  or  tacitly,  this  is  done  on  every  side  of 
us.  Falsely  or  fairly,  many  types  of  mind 
spring  easily  to  this  attitude.  In  hope  or  in 
despair,  the  awful  query  works  out  its  fixed 
reply,  and  life  freezes  or  melts  to  the  mould  of 
it.  We  should  remember  that  this  is  so. 
The  piercing  cry  of  the  people  in  Richter's 
Dream  reechoes  about  us  :  "  O  Christ  !  Are 
we  all  orphans  f  "  Spiritual  tragedies  are  en- 
acting among  us,  to  which  none  but  an  unim- 
aginative, unobservant,  or  untender  eye  can  be 
blind.  Spiritual  forms  and  forces  which  our 
fathers  knew  not,  pursue  us  like  unlaid  ghosts. 
They  start  in  the  glamour  of  the  drawing- 
room  ;  they  skulk  behind  the  study  chair ; 
they  hold  the  Prayer  Book  with  trembling  fin- 
gers ;  they  kneel  with  the  worshiper  ;  they  cry 


36  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

in  the  hymn ;  they  stare  above  our  bridals  ; 
they  look  at  us  in  the  eyes  of  our  children ; 
they  regard  us  in  the  last  recognition  of  our 
dying ;  they  huddle  over  our  graves.  To 
ignore  them  gives  them  a  fatal  fertility ;  to 
foster  them  is  death ;  to  feel  out  a  true 
course  among  them  is  a  "  strait  and  narrow 
way."  He  who  does  this  with  intelligence 
and  candor  has  to  the  respect  of  the  unbe- 
liever a  right  as  clear  as  the  right  of  the 
chemist  to  be  followed  in  the  residts  of  his  ex- 
periment. He  who  does  this  with  humility 
and  prayer  has  to  the  confidence  of  untroubled 
believers  a  right  as  clear  as  the  ecstasy  of  an 
aged  saint  at  the  communion  table. 

There  is  no  reason,  in  the  nature  of  things, 
why  a  man  should  not  question  the  benevo- 
lence of  God.  This  may  be  done  as  honestly 
(I  do  not  say  as  intelligently),  and  it  may  be 
done  as  honorably,  as  to  question  the  good- 
nature of  the  Czar,  or  the  poetic  rank  of  Mil- 
ton, or  the  disposition  of  any  other  being  supe- 
rior to  the  questioner. 

God  is  an  unknown  force.  He  is  expressed 
to  us  through  facts.  It  is  our  right  to  inter- 
pret the  nature  of  that   force  through  these 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  37 

facts.  It  is  our  duty  to  exercise  this  right  in 
a  manner  worthy  of  a  right  so  solemn,  of  facts 
so  grave,  of  a  force  so  vast. 

Human  impressions  are  of  a  singularly  lim- 
ited reliability^,  but  if  there  is  one  which  can 
be  said  to  be  trustworthy,  it  is  that  people 
know  when  they  suffer.  In  the  infinitely  com- 
plicated system  of  pain  and  pleasure  that  gov- 
erns this  world  we  find,  I  premise,  the  em- 
phatic predominance  of  pain.  Did  we  not  re- 
member that  there  have  been  great  teachers 
who  deny  (as  there  are  those  who  admit)  this, 
and  that  they  have  found  important  and  noble 
disciples,  we  might  presume  that  none  but  a 
shallow  or  selfish  nature  could  fail  to  be  aware 
of  this  predominance. 

There  are  two  ways  of  viewing  such  a  sys- 
tem. It  is  natural  to  be  chiefly  struck  with 
the  sadness  of  it.  It  is  possible  to  be  chiefly 
moved  by  the  error  in  it.  It  is  thought  by 
many  people  —  the  world  contains  no  better  — 
that  the  latter  is  the  natural,  as  it  should  be 
the  habitual,  avenue  by  which  an  upright  in- 
telligence ought  to  approach  the  facts  of  life. 
This  I  doubt.  It  seems  to  me  rather  that 
it  is  mainly  by  its  perception  of  pain  that  a 


38  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

limited  or  created  nature  can  constitute  itself 
the  appraiser  of  blame ;  and  that  precisely  in 
proportion  to  the  purity  of  a  soul  must  the 
misery  of  a  sight  appeal  in  advance  of  the 
guilt  of  it.  "  I  want,"  said  the  villain,  in  a 
thoughtful  story,  to  the  unsuccessful  clergy- 
man, who  was  opening  his  Testament  upon 
him,  —  "I  want  to  talk  with  a  man  whose 
first  impulses  are  always  warm  towards  the 
worst  of  men.  Your  best  thoughts  seem  to 
be  your  second  thoughts."  "Do  you  know 
what  keeps  the  gin  palaces  open  ?  "  cried  the 
pure  and  consecrated  Robertson.  "  Misery  ! 
The  miserable  go  there  to  forget." 

I  should  wish,  however,  to  add  that  I  believe 
so  thoroughly  in  the  reality  of  what  we  call 
sin,  that  I  shall  have  nothing  to  say  of  it  here 
as  a  disconnected  fact  in  the  human  economy, 
but,  in  speaking  of  the  miseries  of  life,  shall 
class  it,  first  and  finally,  as  the  greatest  hu- 
man misery  that  we  know  anything  about. 

There  will  be  readers  of  an  essay  like  this  to 
whom  it  will  seem  that  the  uncandidness  of 
unnecessary  gloom  pervades  it,  and  that  the 
distresses  of  life,  upon  which  it  is  always  pos- 
sible to  look  from  at  least  two  sides,  are  pre- 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  89 

sented  with  unfair  emphasis.  Be  it  said,  once 
for  all,  that  the  writer  is  not  unaware  of  the 
absence  from  this  discussion  of  certain  genial 
aspects  of  the  world's  mystery,  nor  of  the 
slightness  with  which  others  are  brought  for- 
ward. It  is  my  intention,  at  this  time,  to  leave 
the  task  of  urging  these  aspects  to  other 
hands.  We  are  perhaps  all  of  us  more  famil- 
iar with  their  force  than  with  that  of  argument 
wrested  from  the  reluctance  of  fate.  Let  it  be 
ours,  just  now,  to  see  what  can  be  said  for  hu- 
man life  upon  its  darkest  side.  Let  us  look, 
for  once,  at  the  divine,  as  we  often  do  at  the 
human  problem,  and,  taking  things  at  their 
worst,  see  what  our  chances  are.  We  do  this, 
in  the  one  case,  for  good  cheer's  sake.  For 
good  cheer's  sake  I  ask  to  be  trusted  in  say- 
ing we  may  do  it  in  the  other,  too. 

Further,  I  urge,  especially,  that  we  owe  it  to 
our  faith  to  make  it  less  easy  than  it  is  for 
shrewd  atheists  to  say,  "  Those  who  heliei^e  in 
a  God  of  love  must  close  their  eyes  to  the  i^he- 
nomena  of  life,  or  garble  the  universe  to  suit 
their  theory,''^ 

It  not  being  our  object  to  furnish  a  full 
index,  or  even  a  concordance,  to  the  miseries 


40  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

of  mankind,  I  have  selected  only  three  ave- 
nues, from  which,  with  merciful  brevity,  to 
approach  our  problem. 

Let  us  review  for  a  moment  our  impressions 
of  the  Creator,  as  received  through  the  mani- 
festations of  natural  law. 

Nature  is  orderly,  wise,  beautiful,  mys- 
terious, terrible,  remorseless,  cruel.  Surrender 
yourself  to  her  awful  moods.  Test  her  at  her 
tenderest.  Try  her  at  her  strongest.  Shall 
we  bask  in  her  midsummer  sun  ?  It  is  a  fire 
from  which  we  must  guard  ourselves  as  if 
from  the  very  glory  of  an  offended  God. 
Would  we  have  the  iron  of  her  snows  in  our 
blood  ?  It  is  at  our  peril  that  they  do  not 
pierce  our  hearts.  If  the  eternal  resurrection 
of  her  spring  does  not  pour  freshets  on  our 
homes  and  mildew  on  our  seeds,  we  kneel  to 
thank  her.  If  the  red  flags  of  her  autumn 
wave  no  signals  of  disease  or  death  about  our 
firesides,  we  draw  our  held  breath  for  another 
cycle  of  her  seasons,  and  trust  her  still.  She 
bestows  the  harvest  at  the  chances  of  the 
famine.  She  gives  her  shine  on  condition  of 
her  storm.  She  blazons  with  beauty  the  hea- 
vens in  which  the  bolt  lurks  to  strike  us  down. 


IS  GOD   GOOD?      ^  41 

She  stimulates  our  courage  by  her  seas.  She 
forms  our  fortitude  by  her  deserts.  She  cre- 
ates our  nations  by  her  mountains.  The  ava- 
lanche, the  shipwreck,  and  the  sirocco  are  the 
cost.  Behind  every  blessing  she  hides  its 
penalty.  Beneath  every  faculty  of  mind  and 
body  she  secures  its  denial.  Every  bestowal 
is  a  danger.  Acceptance  measures  bereave- 
ment.    Possession  is  the  gauge  of  loss. 

"  Life,"  says  a  "  scientific  "  historian,  "■  is 
one  long  tragedy  ;  creation  is  one  great 
crime." 

The  holder  of  happier  faiths  must  at  least 
confess  that  the  mass  of  evidence,  in  the  great 
trial  of  Nature  before  the  bar  of  man,  is  vo- 
luminous and  stern.  Forever  the  temperament 
will  select  for  itself,  and  certain  points  in  the 
case  will  intensify  the  prcejudicia  with  which 
each  of  us  comes  to  the  hearing.  There  are 
some  minds  for  which  the  gentlest  caprice  of 
the  accused  can  never  blot  the  memory  of 
sternly  isolated  facts  in  her  history.  There 
are  nicely  poised  perceptions  to  which  the 
dark  corners  of  her  past  are  always  unveiled. 
There  are  tenderly  balanced  sympathies  for 
which   no  personal  immunity  from  infliction 


42  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

can  muffle  the  wail  of  recorded  anguish.  It  is 
probably  through  a  small,  finely  varied,  and 
strictly  characteristic  collection  of  illustrations 
that  each  of  us  practically  views  a  subject  like 
this.  Is  Nature  merciful  ?  It  may  be  natural 
for  you  to  give  the  historic  answer,  —  to  turn 
to  ages  when  the  world  existed  only  for  the 
propagation  of  monstrous  animal  growths, 
that  breed,  attack,  rend  each  other,  die,  and 
give  place  to  the  next  phase  of  apparently 
purposeless  suffering.  You  recall  primitive 
man,  who  dwelt  in  caves,  like  cubs  ;  who  was 
without  intelligible  speech  or  human  sym- 
pathy, or  the  decency  of  any  wild  beast  known 
to  the  observation  of  science.  Or  you  think 
of  the  highly  developed  savage,  whose  lan- 
guage resembled  the  hissing  of  serpents  ;  or  of 
him,  still  ascending  in  the  type,  who  fed  upon 
the  quivering  flesh  of  live  elephants,  cultivated 
what  is  known  as  tribal  marriage,  and  buried 
his  dead  with  awful  laughter  ;  or  of  him  whose 
war-phrase,  being  interpreted,  signifies,  "  Let 
us  go  and  eat  that  nation."  Or  you  point  to 
cities  that  confide  in  a  crater,  and  in  an  hour 
are  seething  into  lava,  like  the  inorganic  rock ; 
or  to  those  waste   places  where   famine   has 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  43 

preceded  the  traveler,  and  where  the  starved 
corpses  of  entirely  vanished  communities  offer 
him  their  gaunt  hospitality. 

Is  Nature  merciful  ?  It  may  be  that  your 
impulse  gives  the  poetic  answer.  You  turn 
the  query  over  to  the  tiger  in  the  jungles,  the 
death  within  the  fruit,  the  venom  in  the 
thicket,  the  poison  in  the  flower,  the  wreck 
beneath  the  sea,  the  plague  upon  the  air.  To 
many  readers  and  lovers  of  Frederick  Robert- 
son his  awful  illustration  of  the  ichneumon  fly 
will  stand  apart  in  their  minds,  and  reply  for 
them  with  the  convincing  vividness  by  which 
single  images  fasten  themselves  upon  a  sen- 
sitive absorption  of  truth  too  painful  to  be 
endured  in  full. 

The  celebrated  arraignment  of  the  "  great 
mother  "  by  Stuart  Mill  will  be  well  remem- 
bered :  — 

"  Nature  impales  men,  breaks  them  as  if  on 
the  wheel,  casts  them  to  be  devoured  by  wild 
beasts,  burns  them  to  death,  crushes  them  with 
stones  like  the  first  Christian  martyrs,  starves 
them  with  hunger,  freezes  them  with  cold,  poi- 
sons them  by  the  quick  or  slow  venom  of  her 
exhalations,  and  has  hundreds  of  other  hideous 


44  IS  GOD   GOODf 

deaths  in  reserve,  sucli  as  the  ingenious  cruelty 
of  a  Nabis  or  a  Domitian  never  surpassed. 
All  this  Nature  does  with  the  most  supercilious 
disregard  both  of  mercy  and  of  justice,  empty- 
ing her  shafts  upon  the  best  and  noblest  in- 
differently with  the  meanest  and  the  worst ; 
.  .  .  often  as  the  direct  consequences  of  the 
noblest  acts,  and  it  might  almost  be  imagined 
as  a  punishment  for  them." 

Is  Nature  merciful?  It  may  be  easy  for 
you  to  proffer  the  judicial  reply.  You  re- 
member her  immense  and  kindly  recuperative 
force :  that  the  grass  grows  over  her  extinct 
volcano,  that  the  harvest  follows  the  furrow  or 
the  freshet,  that  the  agitation  of  her  oceans 
creates  her  temperature,  that  gorgeous  beauty 
crowns  the  terrors  of  her  tropics,  that  the 
snow  protects  the  seed,  that  time  restores  the 
ruin  of  her  cyclones,  that  flowers  seek  her 
graves,  that  death  itself  preserves  her  from 
the  asphyxia  of  her  superfluous  life.  You 
recall  the  exquisite  system  of  development  by 
which  she  is  manifested  to  human  knowledge ; 
you  observe  that  ages  of  animal  pleasure  and 
pain  went  to  the  preparation  of  the  globe  for 
the  habitation  of  rudimentary  races,  that  in 


IS  GOD   GOOD?  45 

their  turn  peopled  the  earth  and  perished  from 
it  to  make  way  for  men  who  could  master  it, 
who  also  yielded  to  others  who  had  the  mas- 
tery of  them,  who  have  themselves  vanished 
before  our  blossoming  civilization,  as  ours 
shall  vanish  before  the  symmetry  of  the  future 
form.  You  have  been  taught  by  faith,  as  you 
are  taught  over  again  to-day  by  science,  that 
the  world  is  steadily  becoming  a  better  place 
to  live  in ;  that  the  sum  of  its  happiness 
absolutely  increases ;  and  that  the  "  sacrifice 
consumed,"  the  cost  at  which  the  glory  of  the 
future  shall  be  reached,  has  been  what  we  are 
accustomed  to  call  "  worth  while." 

Nevertheless,  is  Nature  merciful  ?  Let  us 
be  just  to  her;  but  for  myself,  whenever  I 
hear  those  three  words,  three  things  present 
themselves  to  my  imagination,  —  the  pant  of 
a  hunted  hare,  the  look  in  the  eye  of  a  lost 
dog,  and  the  heart  of  a  woman  towards  a  man 
who  would  betray  her. 

Is  Nature  merciful  ?  The  intellect  of  a 
child  can  accuse  her.  Goethe  at  an  infant 
age  did  as  much.  The  subtlety  of  a  seer  can- 
not defend  her.  Wordsworth  would  have 
done  it,  if  any  man  could.  The  abyss  of  her 
harshness  is  deeper  than  Rydal  Lake. 


46  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

Take,  again,  —  it  is  not  an  abrupt  transi- 
tion, —  our  views  of  the  Great  Designer  as 
affected  by  the  relation  of  the  sexes.  This  is 
a  subject  upon  which  words  must  be  few,  but 
impressions  deep.  It  is  a  commonplace  to 
say  that  nothing  contributes  so  far  to  either 
the  happiness  or  the  misery  of  the  race  as  this 
sole  incident  in  its  development. 

From  the  Abyssinian  bride  sold  by  her  hus- 
band for  a  weapon,  an  ornament,  a  dinner,  to 
the  last  victim  of  a  mariage  de  convenance 
in  civilized  life,  what  a  sealed  and  awful 
book  !  From  the  heart  of  Dante,  of  Abelard, 
of  Vittoria  Colonna,  to  the  blush  of  the  little 
lass  betrothed  in  a  country  lane  last  week, 
what  a  range  of  capacity  for  what  is  called 
joy !  1  scarcely  hesitate  before  saying  that 
the  attraction  between  man  and  woman  cannot 
be  presumed  to  have  added  to  the  delight,  in 
proportion  as  it  has  intensified  the  denial,  of 
existence.  We  may  be  quite  willing  to  in- 
trust this  assertion  to  the  happiest  lover  in  the 
world,  provided  his  happiness  be  of  that  sen- 
sitive sort  which  does  not  shut  out  the  appre- 
hension of  other  people's  deprivation.  Since, 
were  he  not  the  most  sensitive,  he  could  not 


IS   GOD    GOOD?  47 

be  the  happiest ;  and  were  he  the  most  sensi- 
tive, he  would  be  the  most  sympathetic.  It 
would  be  almost  enough,  in  this  connection,  to 
suggest  the  inherent  vagrancy  of  the  affec- 
tional  instinct  in  man,  and  the  historic  con- 
stancy of  woman.  What  ingenuity  could 
surpass  that  involved  in  this  one  exquisite  in- 
vention of  actual  or  possible  anguish  ? 

It  would  be  almost  enough  to  take  one  ab- 
solute look  at  the  heart  of  an  honorable  man 
who,  in  an  hour  of  beautiful  delusion,  has 
wedded  an  insincere  woman. 

It  would  be  almost  enough  to  shut  the  eyes 
before  the  conflicts  of  a  pure  heart,  to  which 
the  supreme  attraction  occurs,  when  every  law 
of  God  or  man  has  welded  it  to  the  claim  of 
the  less. 

It  would  be  almost  enough  to  look  into  the 
face  of  a  drunkard's  wife. 

It  would  be  more  than  enough  to  hear  the 
cry  of  the  deserted  girl,  who  leaped  to  a  death 
more  merciful  at  its  worst  than  life  at  its  best 
to  her. 

It  would  be  unjust  not  to  recall  the  heavy 
pressure  of  happiness  against  the  scale  of  the 
question,   involved  in  pure   betrothals,  bridal 


48  JS  GOD   GOOD? 

hours,  assured  domestic  content,  the  experi- 
ence of  tried  and  calm  affections,  the  bliss  of 
young  parents,  the  rejuvenation  of  age  in  its 
offspring,  and  the  repose  of  those  for  whom 
the  prayer  of  Tobit  has  been  answered : 
"  Mercifully  grant  that  we  may  grow  aged  to- 
gether." 

But  it  would  be  illogical  not  to  observe  the 
intricate  insecurity  of  the  happiest  hour  that 
history  could  be  shown  to  have  given  to  the 
most  fortunate  affections  of  the  race.  It  would 
be  almost  enough  to  watch  the  countenance  of 
the  radiant  young  mother,  who,  her  children 
leaning  about  her,  at  her  fireside,  hears  sud- 
denly grating  upon  their  laughter  the  discord- 
ant sound  of  a  croupy  cough. 

It  would  be  almost  enough  to  stand  with 
the  father  of  motherless  babes  by  the  first 
gash  life  has  ever  cut  in  the  churchyard  turf 
for  him. 

It  would  be  almost  enough  to  avert  the  face 
from  a  meeting  between  pure  parents  and  a 
ruined  son. 

It  would  be  almost  enough  to  remember  the 
mystery  of  womanhood,  so  "  heavily  weighted, 
in  the  race  of  life,"  as  a  great  scientist  of  our 
day  expresses  it,  by  maternity. 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  49 

It  would  be  almost  enough  to  follow  the  red 
feet  of  war  to  the  obscure  life  of  one  widowed 
girl. 

It  would  be  enough  to  watch  the  process  of 
descent  by  which  a  betrothal  ever  reaches  a 
divorce. 

Look  once  more  at  our  impressions  of  their 
First  Cause  as  received  from  the  sufferings 
of  the  lower  classes  of  society.  These  are 
"  facts "  before  which  the  wisest,  the  ten- 
derest,  the  healthiest,  the  most  joyous,  and  the 
most  devout  among  us  may  well  wish  for  the 
wings  of  the  seraphim  in  the  sacred  story ;  of 
whom  it  is  said  that  "  with  twain  they  covered 
their  faces,  and  with  twain  they  covered  their 
feet,  and  with  twain  they  did  fly." 

A  miniature  bust  of  Michael  Angelo's  Slave 
stands  as  a  paper-weight  upon  the  MS.  which 
this  pen  is  tracing.  The  pose  of  the  muti- 
lated head,  the  droop  of  the  swollen  eyelids, 
the  quiver  of  the  pitiful  mouth,  the  protest  of 
the  thoughtful  brow,  present  themselves,  so 
many  mute  arguments,  appealing  to  be  used. 
The  bit  of  plaster  is  an  unanswered  accusa- 
tion. It  bewails  the  mystery  of  human  cap- 
tivity, of  which  the  enslaving  of  man  by  man 


60  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

was  the  rudest  form,  as  the  ministration  of  one 
portion  of  the  race  to-day  to  the  leisure  of  the 
other  is  the  most  lenient.  From  the  first  cap- 
tive mother  condemned  to  murder  her  own 
child,  to  the  last  poor  wretch  who  sold  her  soul 
to  buy  bread  for  her  family ;  from  the  slave  at 
the  galley-oar,  in  the  seraglio,  under  the  lash, 
facing  the  blood-hound,  on  the  auction-block  ; 
to  the  factory-girl  with  the  "  cotton-cough," 
the  miner  in  the  fire  -  damp,  the  poisoned 
"  hand "  in  the  lead-works,  or  the  child  of 
four  years  rolling  cigars  for  a  passionate  or 
drunken  overseer,  —  there  is  a  range  of  sheer 
human  fear,  which  it  is  not  easy  to  contem- 
plate either  with  or  without  an  explanation 
of  its  existence. 

From  the  filthy  shiverers  who  shared  the 
straw  of  the  feudal  hovel  with  their  donkey  or 
their  goat,  to  the  Irish  laborer  evicted  at  mid- 
winter from  the  home  of  his  life-time ;  from 
the  temperate  and  diligent  American  family 
found  to  have  lived  for  three  months  on  bread, 
and  water,  to  the  all  too  real  "  little  Joe  "  of 
Dickens,  or  the  "  abused  child "  in  any  of 
our  Christian  cities,  habituated  to  suffering-s 
which  it  would  blot  this  page  to  repeat ;  from 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  51 

the  poor  woman  who  told  Octavia  Hill  that 
she  chose  her  deadly  cellar  because  "  it  lay 
between  ninepence  and  the  sun  "  to  the  six 
hundred  and  twenty-three  descendants  of  an 
ignorant  girl,  now  famous  and  infamous  to 
social  science  as  "  Pauper  Margaret ;  "  from 
the  great  causes  of  the  English  corn-law  re- 
sistance, or  the  Reign  of  Terror,  to  the  Nihilist 
passion  fermenting  beneath  the  Winter  Palace, 
or  the  New  York  tenement  house  (sinister 
forerunner  of  revolution  !),  where  four  fam- 
ilies occupy  one  room,  and  wherein,  by  math- 
ematical estimate,  there  belongs  to  each  living 
being  under  the  roof  a  space  on  the  floor's  sur- 
face measuring  eight  feet  by  four,  —  there  is 
a  margin  for  simple  human  endurance,  upon 
which  it  is  not  agreeable,  either  with  or  with- 
out its  obverse  relief,  to  dwell. 

On  this  obverse,  it  were  uncandid  not  to  re- 
member, are  pale  and  pleasant  compensations 
to  benignant  thought.  Beyond  a  certain  point, 
deprivation  unquestionably  dulls  susceptibil- 
ity, denial  teaches  endurance,  obscurity  pre- 
serves from  responsibility,  the  transient  plea- 
sure is  more  emphatic,  the  finer  foreboding 
perhaps  less  acute,  aspiration  cools  into  ac- 
ceptance, and  ignorance  stratifies  into  repose. 


52  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

It  is  not  a  grateful  task  to  remind  people 
how  unfortunate  they  are.  One  who  seems 
to  undertake  it  must  expect  to  be  accused  of 
pessimism  (chiefly  by  those  persons  who  can- 
not be  said,  even  for  politeness'  sake,  to 
know  what  a  pessimist  is),  and  of  "  morbid- 
ness," —  a  word  which  apparently  has  been 
made  to  cover  whatever  form  of  viewing  fact 
differs  from  one's  own.  "  Of  course,"  said  a 
great  writer  of  his  own  sad,  honest  look  at 
life,  — ^. "  of  course  it  is  exaggerated  to  those 
who  feel  feebly."  "  Let  no  man  counsel  me," 
said  Sophocles,  "  but  who  has  felt  sorrow  like 
mine."  Nevertheless,  it  must  be  repeated  that 
no  consistent  philosophy,  no  trained  imagina- 
tion, no  instructed  memory,  no  sensitive  sym- 
pathy, and  no  intelligent  religious  trust  can 
deny  this  to  be  a  state  of  manifold,  mysterious, 
and  unmeasured  suffering.  It  is  a  doctrine 
no  newer  than  Plato  that  all  our  pleasure  con- 
sists in  an  escape  from  pain. 

The  very  failure  of  the  pen  in  a  space  so 
small,  before  a  subject  so  enormous,  writes 
deeper  and  darker  than  its  fluency  could 
mark.  The  very  sinking  of  the  heart  before 
a  strain  so  tense  upon  its   nerve ;    the  very 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  63 

impulse  which  leads  two  kinds  of  i3eople,  the 
dull  and  the  fortunate  —  or,  we  might  add  a 
third,  the  cold  —  into  their  clamor  about  the 
beauty  and  happiness  of  the  world,  itself  ac- 
centuates the  great  onrolling  sound  of  the 
truth,  like  the  voices  of  children  on  the  shore, 
which  increase  while  they  defy  the  roar  of  the 
breaker. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  we  have  touched 
with  a  reticent  and  sparing  finger  upon  what 
might  be  called  three  key-notes  in  the  great 
discords  of  life :  the  cruelty  of  nature,  the 
mystery  of  sex,  and  the  misery  of  the  poor. 
It  will  be  seen  that  these  present  but  a  por- 
tion of  the  lost  harmonies  around  which  the 
chords  of  human  suffering  clash.  It  will  be 
observed  that  of  the  great  facts  of  heredity  we 
have  said  nothing  at  all ;  that  to  the  immense 
influence  of  physical  disease  on  happiness  we 
have  scarcely  alluded ;  that  we  have  passed 
by  all  those  finer  phases  of  our  question  which 
have  led  metaphysicians  to  maintain  that  life 
is  a  continual  vacillation  between  displeasure 
and  ennui;  that  we  have  omitted  the  acute 
historical  illustrations  of  human  woe  ;  that  we 
have  avoided  the  whole  train  of  thought  sug- 


54  JS   GOD   GOOD? 

gested  by  institutions  of  charity,  penalty,  and  . 
mental  healing ;  that  we  have  not  dwelt  upon 
the  obstinate  argument  of  suicide  ;  that  we 
have  not  considered  the  terrible  phenomena  of 
remorse  ;  that  we  have  not  brooded  upon  the 
pitiless  and  inexorable  sentence  of  death  which 
has  gone  out  against  every  breathing  creature 
on  the  earth.  It  will  be  acknowledged  that  we 
have  spared  ourselves  in  the  task  of  "  looking 
the  worst  in  the  face." 

The  most  irrecoverable  "  blue  "  in  philoso- 
phy could  not  venture  to  overlook  the  sum  of 
the  world's  enjoyment,  if  only  for  the  mathe- 
matical reason  that  a  given  amount  of  it  repre- 
sents so  much  less  weight  than  the  same  amount 
of  misery.  The  colors  of  lakes,  the  scents  of 
blush  roses,  —  who  could  forget  ?  —  are  ever 
with  us.  The  radiance  of  lovers'  eyes  and  the 
laughter  of  children  we  may  not  miss.  The 
comforts  of  ease  and  the  vagaries  of  wealth 
are  present  to  us,  and  though  the  invalid  poor 
die  for  lack  of  beef  tea,  it  is  a  fixed  fact  that  a 
velvet  suit  for  a  doll  can  be  purchased  to-day 
for  fifteen  dollars.  But  it  should  not  be  for- 
gotten that,  so  far  as  we  are  able  judicially  to 
estimate  questions  affecting  our  emotions,  pain 


IS   GOB   GOOD?  55 


C( 


goes  farther,"  as  our  idiom  has  it,  in  this 
world  than  pleasure.  This  the  great  inductive 
philosopher,  experience,  teaches,  at  least  to  the 
more  sensitive  of  the  species,  early  in  life. 

Up  to  a  certain  degree,  pain  passes  over 
the  suffering  cells  of  the  brain  without  dis- 
integrating them  ;  but  there  comes  a  limit,  as 
clear  to  the  individual  consciousness  as  it  is 
difficult  to  make  over  to  that  of  another,  be- 
yond which  the  best  that  fate  could  offer  could 
not  atone  for  the  worst  she  has  inflicted.  Wise 
men  may  dispute  this  nice  point  to  the  world's 
end.  It  would  be  possible  to  select  one  be- 
reaved mother,  who  might  call  them  all  as 
scholars  to  her  feet.  A  great  sufferer  hnoios 
that  he  can  set  single  hours  of  his  life  against 
the  accumulated  happiness  of  its  years.  He 
knows  that  the  one,  considered  in  its  cold,  in- 
tellectual character  as  a  fact  of  consciousness, 
outweighs  the  other,  sinking  as  far  below  it  as 
the  sod  is  from  the  stars.  This  knowledge  is 
no  more  to  be  taken  from  him  than  his  souL 
He  would  go  to  the  bar  of  God  with  it. 

There  is  yet  another  thing,  which  the  gayest 
optimist  of  us  all  would  do  well,  in  a  discus- 
sion like  this,  to  bear  in  mind.     The  charm  of 


66  IS   GOB  GOOD? 

nature,  the  glory  of  love,  and  the  pride  of  life 
are  facts  of  which  a  Creator,  presumably  not 
kindly  inclined  towards  his  creatures,  would 
be  presumptively  sure  to  avail  himself.  He 
would  not  be  a  very  shrewd  Deity  who,  with 
malevolent  intentions,  should  create  a  world  of 
ugliness,  hate,  and  unmitigated  deprivation. 

Such  a  God  would  be  too  wise  to  construct 
a  system  of  unrelieved  woe.  He  would  exult- 
antly deepen  pain  by  a  background  of  plea- 
sure. He  would  fiendishly  emphasize  loss  by 
experience  of  possession.  He  would  create 
hope  as  a  foil  against  despair.  The  color  of 
the  lily,  the  kiss  of  a  child,  the  delirium  of 
love,  it  might  be  his  horrible  ingenuity  to  hold 
as  what  artists  call  "values"  against  the  tor- 
nado, and  the  tooth  of  famine  and  the  grave. 

Conceptions  like  these,  almost  enough  to 
congest  imagination,  might  be  true,  though 
not  in  the  same  measure,  of  the  moral  nature 
of  man.  It  is  conceivable  that  up  to  a  cer- 
tain extent,  at  least,  good  impulses  might  have 
been  created  for  evil  ends.  There  is  a  large 
border-land  of  moral  conflict,  wherein  our 
worst  assaults  seem  to  come  on  the  wings 
of  angels  of   light.     It  is  conceivable  that  a 


J8   GOD   GOOD?  67 

maleficent  God  would  bestow  upon  us  aspira- 
tion to  create  in  us  remorse,  and  allow  us  to 
strive  for  purity  that  lie  might  the  more  ex- 
quisitely gloat  over  our  surrender  to  guilt. 

It  is  not  easy  for  a  reverent  mind  to  glance 
into  this  pit,  even  to  heighten  by  contrast  the 
dazzle  of  the  ether  up  to  which  the  devout 
heart  looks. 

But  it  seems  to  me  that  if  there  is  any  be- 
ing of  whom  we  need  to  know  the  worst  that 
could  be  said,  our  Creator  is  that  Being.  A 
faith  that  will  not  bear  for  once  firmly  to  re- 
gard the  blackest  possibilities  of  our  destiny 
does  not  deserve  their  brightest. 

For  the  reasons  given,  as  well  as  for  those 
which  must  be  omitted  from  a  study  of  this 
kind,  the  reader  will  follow  me  in  saying  that 
the  miseries  and  mysteries  of  human  life  being 
what  they  are,  and  our  conceptions  of  the  Crea- 
tor being,  as  they  must  be,  drawn  to  so  large  an 
extent  through  misery  and  mystery,  the  simple 
J'act  of  the  faith  of  mankind  in  his  fair  inten- 
tions is  in  and  of  itself  as  powerful  a  proof  of 
his  goodwill  as  we  are  likely  to  obtain,  —  a  far 
more  powerful  one  than  all  the  limp  religious 
impulse  that  could  be  wrung  out  of  a  system  in 


58  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

which  ease  and  pleasure  predominated.  It 
does  not  seem  to  me  that  we  are  in  the  habit  of 
giving  to  this  aspect  of  the  question  anything 
like  the  dignity  or  the  force  which,  as  an  argu- 
ment, it  deserves. 

I  do  not  refer  to  what  is  known  as  the  intui- 
tive argument  for  God,  which  lies  quite  behind 
us  in  the  discussion.  Let  us  call  this  rather 
the  argument  of  acquired  trust.  It  would 
seem  to  be  the  consequence  of  experience 
rather  than  its  prelude.  The  child,  in  the 
first  blow  from  a  father's  hand,  perceives  noth- 
ing but  an  evidence  of  cruelty.  Youth,  hot- 
headed and  quick-hearted,  upon  the  first  im- 
portant occasion  when  its  wishes  are  crossed, 
flashes  out  its  protest  against  Providence. 
Maturity  only  builds  up  confidence,  and  old 
age  alone  knows  peace. 

We  find  it  to  be  the  law  of  divine  denial 
that  it  not  only  does  not  obliterate,  it  creates, 
the  phenomenon  of  human  belief.  The  final 
test  of  love  is  trust  under  apparent  desertion. 
This  absolute  trial  it  has  been  God's  mysteri- 
ous purpose  to  impose  upon  man.  Man  has 
stood  the  test.  Deep  as  he  wades  in  the  tide 
of  error,  wide  as  he  gropes  in  the  gloom  of 


18  GOD  GOOD?  69 

doubt,  low  as  he  sinks  in  the  mud  of  sin,  nev- 
ertheless, man  has  stood  the  test. 

There  are  lives  of  which  we  say,  in  the  un- 
conscious bitterness  of  common  speech,  that 
they  are  "  pursued  by  Providence."  The  re- 
ligious resignation  of  such  lives  partakes  of 
the  nature  of  miracle.  Our  wildest  outcry 
against  fate  goes  down  before  the  patience  of 
the  deaf-mute  or  the  cheerfulness  of  the  blind, 
or  the  trust  of  an  invalid,  buried  alive  for  forty 
years  in  a  "  mattress  grave,"  in  the  tenderness 
of  the  Power  that  fixed  him  there. 

When  life  selects  a  sensitive  and  silent  and 
untaught  woman,  whose  whole  being  beyond 
its  affectional  side  is  rudimentary,  of  whom  we 
should  say  that  it  were  a  severity  to  expect  her 
to  breast  a  snow-storm  alone,  —  when  fate  se- 
lects such  a  woman,  and  bruises  her  stroke  by 
stroke,  leaving  her  widowed,  leaving  her  child- 
less, dragging  her  through  the  extremes  of 
poverty,  adding  sickness,  inventing  friendless- 
ness,  threatening  insanity,  and  denying  death, 
and  we  find  her  peacefully  and  affectionately 
on  her  knees  before  a  Being  whom  she  never 
saw,  whom  she  never  heard,  whom  she  never 
touched,  but  to  whom  alone  she  can  attribute 


60  IS   GOD  GOOD? 

the  inquisition  of  her  life,  —  let  us  drop  upon 
our  own,  beside  her ;  there  is  no  higher  place 
that  our  nicest  logic  is  fit  for,  before  the  argu- 
ment of  such  a  fact  as  she. 

Life  presents  too  many  illustrations  of  this 
miracle  of  human  trust  for  us  to  be  able  to  set 
them  aside  as  exceptions.  They  form  a  serried 
rank,  advancing  upon  our  doubts  like  the 
armed  angels  whom  the  prophet  saw  in  the 
golden  air.  It  is  not  to  our  purpose  now  to 
dwell  upon  the  extent  to  which  Christianity 
has  cultivated  this  trust.  It  is  enough  at 
present  that,  from  whatever  origin  and  by 
whatever  support,  it  exists.  The  fact  that  one 
sane  mind,  under  the  extremity  of  fate,  de- 
veloped the  hahit  of  joyous  confidence  known 
to  the  higher  forms  of  religious  culture  were 
something  before  which  a  doubter  with  a  fine 
eye  must  ponder  long. 

It  would  seem  that  the  fact  that  life  abounds, 
has  always  abounded,  with  this  confidence, 
rises,  as  I  have  said,  to  the  region  of  the  su- 
pernatural. It  is  less  human  than  divine.  It 
assures  us  of  the  divine  in  our  Maker  by 
the  divine  in  ourselves.  It  is  the  fire  of 
heaven  —  Prometheus  never  knew  it  —  given 
at  last  to  man. 


IS  GOD   GOODf  61 

What  merely  human  friendship  (I  ask  it 
reverently)  could  stand  the  strain  which  God 
has  seen  fit  to  put  upon  our  friendship  for 
himself  ? 

What  human  affection  increases  under  the 
infliction  by  its  object  of  unexplained  and  life- 
long pain  ? 

True,  we  know  instances  in  which  our  little 
loves  for  one  another  seem  to  have  survived 
every  attack  upon  them,  —  that  of  the  wife 
for  a  brutal  husband,  that  of  a  mother  for  a 
heartless  child ;  but  such  is  not  the  law  of  our 
natures. 

Faith  requires  faith.  Tenderness  demands 
the  tender.  Truth  claims  the  true ;  and  ought 
to  claim  it,  and  will.  Even  in  the  rarest 
forms  of  self-abnegation  known  to  human 
fondness,  repeated  signs  of  coldness  or  unkind- 
ness  wear  out  trust.  Trust  is  the  last  and 
highest  manifestation  of  the  divine.  Even  our 
conceivable  malignant  Deity  would  pause  be- 
fore the  creation  of  a  state  of  character  in 
which  trust — trust  in  purity,  trust  in  beauty, 
trust  in  love,  trust  in  himself  as  the  essence  of 
these  holy  things  —  had  become  the  all-per- 
vading  and   the   all  -  powerful   element  ;   im- 


62  JS   GOD   GOOD? 

mediate  as  the  light,  and  strong  as  the  wind, 
and  tender  as  tears,  and  firm  as  the  eternal 
rock.  He  would  have  created  a  character 
mightier  than  himself.  He  would  have  cre- 
ated his  own  God.  The  hells,  whether  of  time 
or  eternity,  could  work  no  death  upon  such  a 
character.  It  would  pass  out  of  them  like  the 
three  men  in  the  old  story  from  the  furnace  of 
living  fire. 

The  ultimate  religious  tenderness  of  man 
towards  God  is  a  thing  too  high,  too  pure, 
too  reasonable,  to  have  sprung  from  any  source 
less  than  himself.  It  must  not  be  forgotten 
that  this  trust  involves  a  state  of  feeling  in 
man  which  puts  the  fact  that  he  has  hurt  God 
to  the  front  of  his  consciousness  that  God 
has  hurt  him.  Even  supposing  it  to  be  true 
that  mere  human  longing  for  happiness,  in 
itself  considered,  should  not  philosophically 
offer  the  promise  of  satisfaction,  it  is  not  ra- 
tional that  the  panting  human  thirst  for  holi- 
ness, implied  in  the  whole  scheme  by  which 
the  confidence  of  mankind  in  the  mercy  of  its 
Creator  has  been  developed,  should  be  the  off- 
shoot of  anything  other  than  a  God  who  de- 
served it. 


IS  GOD   GOOD?  63 

Is  it  not  conceivable  that  the  creation  of 
precisely  such  a  type  of  character  as  this  exact 
kind  of  trust  signifies  were  worth  the  cost  at 
which  it  has  been  built  up  ? 

Is  it  not  altogether  possible  that  the  rounded 
development  of  such  a  character  demands  a 
far  more  straightforward  look  at  the  painful 
facts  of  life  than  we  are  taught  to  give  them 
by  that  pseudo-philosophy  which  substitutes 
superficial  cheerfulness  for  searching  truthful- 
ness ?  We  are  not  asked  to  writhe  ourselves 
into  the  belief  that  this  is  a  happy  w^orld.  We 
are  asked  peacefully  to  admit  that  it  was  not 
meant  to  be  a  happy  one.  We  are  not  lured, 
like  girls,  to  love  our  Creator  because  he  treats 
us  indulgently.  We  are  expected,  like  sol- 
diers, to  love  him,  although  he  treats  us 
sternly.  We  are  required  to  discover  the 
characteristics  of  a  loving  and  faithful  parent 
in  the  appearance  of  a  severe  and  mysterious 
ruler. 

It  is  the  human  task 

To  find  the  father's  smile 

Behind  the  monarch's  mask. 

Regarded  carefully,  this  is  a  fine  tribute  of 
respect  to  the  race. 


64  IS   GOD   GOODf 

It  must  not  be  forgotten  that  the  scientific 
basis  of  human  trust  in  the  Creator  is  one  of 
belief  in  a  life  to  succeed  this.  • 

This  is  as  much  as  to  say  that  pain  is  more 
formative  than  pleasure  of  spiritual  character, 
and  of  faith  which  is  the  distinct  resultant 
of  such  character. 

On  the  whole,  for  most  of  us  this  is  prac- 
tically true.  They  are  rare  people  who  can 
bear  great  good-fortune.  Sustained  happiness, 
as  our  plirase  goes,  spoils  us ;  only  the  select 
natures  sweeten,  strengthen,  and  mature  under 
it.  There  seems  to  be  a  law,  not  unlike  cer- 
tain analogies  in  nature,  by  which  the  human 
plant  requires  a  winter.  ^ 

Philosophically,  too,  it  is  easy  to  see  that 
pain  rather  than  joy  leads  to  that  desire  for 
another  life  which  might  underlie  the  capacity 
for  one.  "  A  soul  sodden  with  pleasures " 
does  not  soar.  A  continuance  of  limited  hap- 
piness  is  no  spur  towards  the  attainment  of 
the  unlimited.  All  social  history  proves  this. 
Man  unstung  by  deprivation  saunters  through 
his  little  possibility.  The  ascetic  conqueror 
succumbs  to  the  luxurious  vices  of  the  con- 
quered.    He    who   lives    under   a   bread-fruit 


/;S  GOD   GOODf  Q5 

tree  invents  no  grain-elevators.  Very  near  the 
surface  lies  at  least  one  sound  reason  why  the 
race  finds  itself  in  what  Kant  called  a  ''  never- 
ceasing  pain."  This  opens  close  upon  all  the 
ancient  and  great  discussions  clustering  about 
the  value  of  force  and  activity.  It  is  enough 
for  our  purposes  to  say  that  it  is  natural  to 
accept  pleasure ;  it  is  natural  to  escape  pain. 
If  this  world  had  been  made  for  the  many 
what  it  is  for  the  few,  given  to  the  deprived 
as  it  is  to  the  fortunate  ;  if  life  for  any  of  us 
had  been  what  its  ideals  are,  what  but  a  mir- 
acle could  have  given  us  a  compelling  interest 
in  a  world  beyond  ?  In  short,  if  we  had  been 
provided  with  the  materials  of  content,  where 
should  we  have  found  the  materials  of  aspira- 
tion? 

Modern  science  has  itself  unwittingly  in- 
vented one  of  the  best  of  testimonies  to  the 
benevolence,  if  not  the  beneficence,  of  the  Cre- 
ator, in  acknowledging  the  compulsion  which 
it  has  found  laid  upon  itself  of  evolving 
human  happiness  out  of  human  suffering. 
Somewhere,  keen  eyes  have  perceived,  a  keen 
intellect  must  meet  this  demand.  Somehow, 
it  must  be  done.     Whatever  this  globe  was 


66  IS   GOD  GOOD? 

put  here  for,  it  was  not  for  failure.  What- 
ever the  unit  was  made  for,  the  race  was  not 
made  for  hopelessness.  However  black  the 
past,  however  blind  the  present,  a  bright 
future  is  a  philosophical  necessity. 

The  individual,  we  are  told,  withers  and 
dies.  The  type  roots  and  renews.  The  blood- 
red  pages  of  history,  closed,  sealed,  and  for- 
gotten, give  way  to  the  fair  hieroglyphs  of 
prophecy,  cold,  golden,  and  calm.  Let  us  be 
content  to  suffer,  that  our  posterity  may 
enjoy.  Let  us  be  satisfied  with  our  dulled  ca- 
pacity, our  imperfect  faculty,  our  little  know- 
ledge, our  lost  ideal,  our  pitiful  hope,  our  puny 
achievement,  since  they  who  come  after  us 
shall  grow  like  grass  from  our  decay.  Let  us 
endure,  enjoy,  strive,  sing,  bleed,  smile,  and 
go  to  our  graves  gratefully.  Over  our  dumb 
and  witless  ashes  a  select  and  proud  race,  with 
the  beauty  of  pagan  gods,  shall  walk  haughtily, 
and  with  the  scorn  of  the  gods  shall  remember 
us  as  we  remember  the  savage,  whose  war- 
shouts  assisted  in  developing  the  fine,  human 
larynx,  to  contribute  to  the  modulations  in  the 
voice  of  Malibran. 

It  is  significant  that    temperaments  easily 


IS   GOD   GOODt  67 

appeased  by  the  best  that  unbelieving  science 
has  to  offer  have  been  compelled  to  devise 
what,  for  want  of  a  better  term,  we  may  call 
a  humane  purpose  in  the  creation  of  this 
world.  Clumsily  as  they  have  succeeded,  it  is 
not  we  who  should  overlook  the  fact  that  they 
have  tried.  It  is  memorable  that  they  have 
been  forced  to  tender  even  this  pitiful  substi- 
tute for  personal  immortality ;  nay,  they  have 
added  the  "  invention  of  immortality,"  what- 
ever that  may  mean,  to  the  list  of  attractions 
held  out  to  the  disciples  of  their  meagre  faith. 
It  is  important  that  even  so  awkward  a  con- 
trivance is  presented  to  us  in  place  of  the  per- 
fect mechanism  of  eternal  hope.  Natural  se- 
lection has  not  yet  eliminated  the  quiver  from 
the  human  lip,  which  makes  it  hard  to  frame 
the  imaginary  answer  that  Strauss  makes  to 
Frederick  the  Great :  "  Pardon,  sire,  but  I 
have  no  desire  to  go  to  heaven  at  all." 

Human  trust,  we  observed,  in  divine  mercy 
is  postulated  on  belief  in  a  life  to  come.  This 
is  also  to  say  that  the  disadvantages  of  this  life 
are  so  many  arguments  for  the  evolution  from 
it  of  another  ;  properly  presented,  an  unassail- 
able position,  which  this  is  no  place  to  elabo- 
rate. 


68  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

The  mourner  smiles,  because  sbe  looks 
forward  to  comfort.  The  sufferer  endures, 
because  he  expects  relief.  The  imperfectly 
happy  yearns  for  the  maturity  of  joy.  The 
guilty  hopes,  because  he  anticipates  purity. 
Each  confides  in  a  Being  who  is  both  able  and 
willing  to  bestow  these  sequels  on  pleasure, 
pain,  and  sin. 

It  is  the  aim  of  the  believer  to  cultivate  this 
confidence  as  the  most  important  fact  of  his 
life.  It  is  more  real  to  him  than  his  sorrow ; 
it  is  more  near  to  him  than  his  remorse.  Fa- 
miliarity cannot  wrest  it  from  him.  Unlooked- 
for  anguish  cannot  shock  it  out  of  him.  The 
hurling  of  temptation  upon  temptation  cannot 
weaken  it  in  him.  Death  cannot  bury  it  with 
him.     Eternity  shall  justify  it  for  him. 

Is  God  good  ?  If  this  sublime  trust,  itself 
a  marvel  only  less  than  himself,  be  the  fond 
and  fatal  delusion  of  a  pitiful  ignorance,  a 
phantasm  of  the  emotions,  a  movement  of  the 
blood,  a  secretion  of  the  brain,  no.  JVo,  if  the 
bravest  delights  this  earth  can  muster  are  all 
that  men  can  confidently  call  their  own.  i\"o, 
if  the  sum  of  our  misery  is  the  sum  of  our 
days.  iVo,  if  the  tale  of  earth's  error  is  "  the 
end  of  the  song." 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  69 

If  joy  has  no  permanence,  if  anguish  no 
comfort,  if  sin  no  cure,  no,  and  a  thousand 
times  no ! 

If  aspiration  has  no  perfect  blossom,  if 
power  no  mellow  fruit,  if  hope  no  sound  justi- 
fication ;  if  denial  never  becomes  delight ;  if 
despair  never  turns  to  ecstasy  ;  if  love  knows 
no  resurrection,  and  purity  no  assured  vitality, 
and  faith  no  throne,  no,  —  to  the  last  breath, 
no  ! 

Is  there  Love  at  the  heart  of  the  world  ?  Is 
there  law  in  this  Love  ?  Is  there  joy  in  this 
law  ?  Yes^  if  the  blighted  seed  of  our  experi- 
ence be  sown  to  the  blessed  harvest  of  another. 
Yes,  if  time  be  a  cipher  to  which  eternity 
gives  the  key.  Yes,  if  the  virile  hope  of  a  life 
without  an  end  be  the  measure  of  the  mystery 
of  the  splendor  of  the  truth.  Yes,  if  he  who 
permitted  this  world  has  promised  the  other. 
Yes,  at  the  strain  of  extremity,  in  the  black- 
ness of  darkness,  to  the  last  outcry  of  endur- 
ance and  the  last  throb  of  belief,  —  yes  I 

O  you  who  have  given  us  a  counterfeit  of  hu- 
man hope,  who  have  stuffed  an  effigy  of  human 
happiness,  who  have  composed  a  parody  on 
human  dignity,  we  suffer  you,  without  fear,  to 


70  IS   GOD   GOOD? 

set  these  against  the  gold,  the  heart-beat,  and 
the  song !  What  is  the  best  your  first  can 
offer,  beside  the  least  our  lowest  can  com- 
mand ?  What  has  the  king,  the  priest,  or  the 
prophet  of  your  dreary  creed  to  look  to,  com- 
pared with  the  promise  open  to  the  obscurest 
human  soul  that  knows  itself  a  deathless  thing? 
''A  cripple  in  the  right  way,"  Bacon  has  re- 
minded us,  "  may  beat  a  racer  in  the  wrong." 
A  believing  pauper  would  be  insane  to  change 
places  with  him  who  may  be  your  "  advanced  " 
Herbert  Spencer  of  two  thousand  years  to 
come,  though  that  highly  developed  being  were 
to  be  all  that  you  expect,  if  he  is  to  cease 
where  you  anticipate.  A  slave  with  a  heaven 
were  happier  than  Shakespeare  without. 

We  suffer  you,  without  disturbance,  to  ex- 
plain to  us  how  the  physiology  of  the  future  is 
to  extend  the  realm  of  matter,  till  it  is  coex- 
tensive with  knowledge,  with  feeling,  and  with 
action  ;  to  tell  us  of  the  prospect  of  that  hea- 
venly commune,  "in  which  men  will  reserve 
for  themselves  not  even  a  hope,  not  even  the 
shadow  of  a  joy,"  —  in  which  "  all  is  at  an  end 
for  the  speck  of  flesh  and  blood  with  the  little 
spark   of  instinct  which   it  calls   mind ; "  to 


IS  GOD  GOOD?  71 

call  our  attention  to  the  growth  of  the  "  great 
unit,"  man,  the  sacrifice  of  generation  for  gen- 
eration, of  the  species  for  the  type,  of  the  frac- 
tion for  the  whole.  One  hour's  hope  of  the 
believer's  Paradise  is  worth  it  all. 

It  is  a  well-mannered  comfort  that  you  offer 
us,  like  the  smile  of  a  woman  in  evening  dress 
on  a  man  who  has  an  appointment  with  the 
surgeon.  We  recognize  your  courtesy,  but 
we  choose  the  warm  clasp  of  a  living  human 
hand. 

Your  cold  voices  have  a  hollow  echo.  They 
sound  afar  off,  to  us,  and  thin.  Their  clamor 
faints  about  our  imperious  human  need.  Who 
would  exchange  even  the  delusion  of  eternal 
life  for  the  apotheosis  of  death  ? 

If  to  expectance  we  add  assurance,  how  can 
we  pause  for  your  bleak  interruption  ? 

Hope  is  not  proof,  but  it  is  argument.  Con- 
viction is  not  demonstration,  but  it  is  enlight- 
enment. "  He  had  learned,"  it  is  said  of 
Goethe,  "  that  faith  goes  farther  than  know- 
ledge." 

How  naturally  t-he  compass  swings  on  its 
pivot  to  the  pole !  How  joyously  the  heart 
which  has  cultivated  the  spiritual  faculty  of 


72  IS  GOD   GOOD? 

faith  turns,  from  the  obstacles  thrust  between 
the  love  of  God  and  the  love  of  man,  to  the 
region  where  these  two  elemental  facts  of  the 
universe  become  one  mighty  current ! 

Astronomy  tells  us  of  systems  lighted  by 
colored  suns,  —  green,  sapphire,  and  ruby. 
From  the  lurid  airs  of  a  crimson  world  we 
seem  to  ourselves  to  return  to  the  peace  and 
the  power  of  absolute  and  homelike  light. 

"  The  love  of  God,"  said  Ecclesiasticus,  in  a 
profound  moment,  "  passeth  all  things  for  illu- 
mination." We  recall,  with  a  stir  at  the  heart 
which  transforms  the  severe  philosophical  lan- 
guage, what  a  great  thinker  has  told  us  of  "  the 
absurdity  of  the  passions  and  the  littleness  of 
all  that  is  not  God."  We  can  understand 
Spinoza,  of  whom  it  is  said  that  he  was  "  intox- 
icated with  God."  The  whole  being  bounds 
like  the  cripple  at  the  Gate  Beautiful,  whom 
the  apostle  healed.  Our  eternal  liberty  draws 
its  value  from  the  prospect  of  acquaintance 
with  him  who  is  behind  our  mutilated  life. 
Here  is  the  secret  of  the  high  reticence  of 
knowledge,  never  to  be  conquered,  always  to  be 
sought.  Here  is  the  essence  of  all  the  solemn 
ideals  of  love,  never  overtaken,  never  possessed, 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  73 

forever  to  be  won.  Here  is  the  source  of  the 
white  waters  of  purity,  an  eternal  thirst  for 
which  demands,  deserves,  and  shall  receive  an 
eternal  supply. 

If  everlasting  hope  be  the  possibility  and  the 
promise  to  the  race,  anything  that  the  maker 
of  an  ephemeral  system  chooses  to  insert  in 
it  cannot  philosophically  be  made  a  ground 
of  complaint.  "  There  can  no  evil  befall  a 
good  man  either  in  life  or  death,"  said  Soc- 
rates, going  to  the  root  of  the  matter.  "  If  I 
believed  as  you  do,"  cried  a  doubter,  looking 
at  me  with  the  uncomforted  eyes  of  her  class, 
^''nothing  would  daunt  me!"  She  was  right, 
if  only  as  a  matter  of  pure  algebra.  "  Omit 
eternity  in  your  estimate  of  area,"  urged 
a  mathematician,  "and  your  conclusion  is 
wrong."  No  equation  can  be  constructed  out 
of  this  and  the  eternal  life.  Limited  pain 
cannot  be  set  against  illimitable  happiness, 
nor  transient  stain  against  permanent  purity. 
If  heaven  follows  earth,  man  is  dumb  before 
God. 

How  gentle  thought  grows  in  the  climate  of 
hope!  Seen  in  the  atmosphere  of  trust,  the 
countenance  of  life  is  changed.    Re-read  in  the 


74  IS  GOD  GOOD? 

light  of  love,  the  story  of  the  world  flashes  into 
an  illuminated  text. 

The  imagination   learns  to   stir    reticently 
about  the  details  of  the  dreariest  fate.     The 
sympathy   yearns   more  and   more  peacefully 
towards  the  woe  which  it  cannot  forget  or  re- 
lieve.    The  heart  surrenders  to  mystery,  and 
cultivates   content.      We   wrest  the  habit  of 
cheer  from  the  teeth  of  denial.     We  educate 
the  impulse  of  happiness,  and  fling  challenges 
to  grief.    We  dwell  upon  the  little  joys  of  life. 
We  count  the  forgotten  ease.     We  seek  the 
"  hid  treasure."     We  remember  the  tempera- 
ments that  grief  passes  by  upon  the  other  side, 
the  lives  which  acute  temptation  shuns,  mem- 
ories that  naturally  do  not  absorb  the  unplea- 
sant, hearts  that  are  easily  light.     We  recall 
the  grave  delights   of   a  consciously  forming 
character,  the  strength  and  fineness  of  the  mil- 
itary quality  that  conflict  only  cultivates,  the 
stern  beauty  of  endurance,  the  high  glow  of 
self-sacrifice,  the  peace  and  power  of  prayer, 
the  grandeur  of  hardly  acquired  holiness.     We 
find  ourselves  unable  to  think  of  these  things 
apart  from   their   embryonic  character.     We 
remember  that  they  develop  deathless  forces. 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  76 

We  remember  that  they  go  to  constitute  un- 
dying spirits.  Pain  viewed  in  the  loftiness 
of  its  purpose  does  not  seem  to  be  the  worst 
thing  in  the  world.  Idealized  by  heaven,  earth 
stands  transfigured.  Life  becomes  a  privilege, 
glorious  in  proportion  as  it  is  a  test  of  trust-ca- 
pacity and  enduring  power.  That  mysterious 
quality  which  in  its  physical  form  physicians 
call  vitality,  and  for  which  they  cherish  an  al- 
most religious  respect,  has  a  spiritual  counter- 
part, which  we  learn  to  recognize  as  the  proud- 
est possession  that  a  man  can  own.  All  that 
he  hath  though  he  give  for  it,  he  will  not  count 
the  cost.  It  is  like  one  of  those  Chinese  crys- 
tals, rounded  by  attrition  with  grains  of  sand, 
of  which  we  are  told  that  it  takes  the  life-time 
of  one  workman  to  make  a  perfect  specimen. 

An  eye-witness  of  a  peculiarly  heart-rend- 
ing shipwreck  once  stood  depicting  to  a  circle 
of  friends,  with  vitriolic  vividness,  the  strug- 
gles of  men  who  clung,  in  an  icy  sea,  on  a  mid- 
winter day,  five  hours  and  a  half  to  a  glazed 
rock,  at  which  the  surf  was  tearing  like  the 
teeth  of  hate.  A  listener,  lifting  the  half-mel- 
ancholy, half-scornful  look  of  one  who  has 
weighed  life  and  found  it  wanting,  interrupted, 


76  18   GOD   GOOD? 

"  Fools  to  cling  !  Fools  to  cling !  "  "  No  !  " 
flashed  another,  turning  upon  him  with  a 
movement  which  I  know  not  how  to  describe 
as  other  than  radiant ;  it  was  like  the  sweep 
of  light  on  darkness,  "  No ;  while  there  was 
hope  of  life,  philosophers  to  cling  !  " 

Fools,  then,  or  philosophers,  —  we  are  con- 
tent to  leave  the  choice  of  terms  to  the  great 
heart  and  sound  sense  of  humanity,  —  we  cling 
to  the  sane,  strong,  reasonable  hope  of  ever- 
lasting life. 

The  wave  will  have  its  roar.  The  breaker 
will  overwhelm  the  sinking  face.  The  hands 
may  slip,  bleed,  freeze ;    hut  they  will  cling. 

It  is  human  to  cling ;  it  is  divine  to  cling ;  it 
is  instinct ;  it  is  reason  ;  it  is  the  blind  brute 
motion  of  nature  ;  it  is  the  last  fine  finish  of 
knowledge. 

If  there  is  a  rock,  though  all  but  sunk  be- 
neath the  surf,  a  drowning  hand  will  find  it. 
Before  the  argument  of  life  the  negation  of 
death  sweeps  on  and  seethes  away,  like  a 
thwarted  wave. 

Upon  this  rock,  at  the  ebb  of  the  tide,  in 
the  calm  of  the  day,  we  leave  the  exigencies  of 
fate.     To  it  we  bring  the  worst  of  dread,  the 


IS   GOD   GOOD?  77 

dreariest  of  doubt,  the  climax  of  pain,  the  fe- 
ver of  sin.  To  it  we  take  the  promise  of  our 
imperfect  joys,  the  blight  of  our  unripe  con- 
tent, the  recoil  of  our  rebuffed  aspiration,  the 
disturbance  of  our  broken  repose.  From  it  we 
regard  the  unknown  Author  of  mystery  with 
the  hio^h  beat  of  trustful  hearts.  Earth  is  a 
student  in  what  the  great  Frenchwoman  called 
"  the  science  of  God."  Life  is  like  the  Tamil 
grammar,  which  reached  the  ideal  of  scholar- 
ship in  its  solemn  preface  :  "To  God,  the  eter- 
nal, almighty  Jehovah,  and  author  of  speech, 
be  glory  forever  and  ever." 

It  is  hardly  possible  to  close  a  paper  like 
this  without  reminding  ourselves  once  again, 
quite  clearly,  that  with  the  remarkable  con- 
formations of  the  Christian  Scriptures  towards 
our  subject,  it  has  not  been  our  purpose  to 
deal.  But  it  can  scarcely  be  overlooked  that 
to  believers  in  revealed  truth  it  is  difficult  to 
perfect  the  separation  of  thought  which  we 
have  selected. 

There  is  a  powerful  protest  of  the  heart, 
which  in  asking,  "  Does  my  friend  love  me  ?  " 
insensibly  slides  into  "  What  will  he  do  for 
me?  "or  even  into  "What  Aas  he  done  for 


78  IS   GOD  GOODf 

me  ?  "  Man,  in  his  extremity,  exerts  his  sol- 
emn right  to  carry  this  appeal  of  his  nature 
reverently  up.  What  will  God  do  for  him  ? 
Everlasting  life  leans  down  to  answer.  What 
has  God  done  for  him?  A  Carpenter  from 
Nazareth  can  reply. 


III. 

WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

The  Bible  above  most,  perhaps  above  all 
books  that  have  been  written,  has  tempera- 
ment. It  piques,  attracts,  repels,  confuses. 
It  draws  upon  attention  and  patience.  It 
disciplines  negligence.  It  puts  fine  spurs  to 
motive.  One  must  take  time  to  win  the  in- 
dividuality of  it.  It  is  a  liberal  education  to 
learn  how  to  live  with  it. 

The  Bible  is  not  a  primer.  It  is  no  easy- 
reading  for  beginners.  The  mere  alphabet  of 
either  knowledge  or  feeling  cannot  fit  a  man  to 
do  anything  better  with  this  book  than  to  take 
it  or  leave  it  on  trust  from  his  own  moral  in- 
stinct. "  No  man  who  knows  nothing  else," 
a  scholar  has  told  us,  "  knows  even  his  Bible." 

The  Bible,  we  say,  is  a  difficult  book.  This 
should  be  admitted  fairly,  in  justice  to  it,  to 
belief,  and  to  believers.  It  is  a  powerful  ap- 
peal to  the  emotions,  but  it  is  more  than  that. 


80        WBAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEALS 

It  is  a  strenuous  influence  upon  conduct,  but 
it  is  yet  different  from  that.  It  is  a  challenge 
to  the  intellect  of  the  race. 

It  is  one  of  the  signs  of  a  successful  book 
that  the  reader  employs  himself  in  thinking 
how  he  would  have  done  it  differently,  and 
it  would  be  a  laughable  problem  in  psycho- 
logical algebra  to  estimate  the  number  and 
kinds  of  persons  who  would  like  to  show  the 
Creator  how  to  write  his  over  again.  How 
many  of  us,  in  the  deep  below  the  lowest  deep 
that  underlies  sub-consciousness,  believe  that 
we  could  have  made  a  better  Bible  than  we 
possess  ? 

Students  of  the  subject  have  drawn  a  dis- 
tinction familiar  to  most  of  us,  between  Reve- 
lation, Inspiration,  and  the  Bible,  but  for  con- 
venience the  term  Revelation  is  used  in  this 
paper  in  its  commonly  accepted  sense,  as  de- 
scriptive of  that  especial  form  of  divine  mani- 
festation known  to  us  as  the  Christian  Scrip- 
tures. • 

The  moment  that  a  man  undertakes  to  judge 
what  he  would  do  if  he  were  a  God,  he  must, 
of  necessity,  put  God  in  the  position  of  doing 
as  if  he  were  a  man :  but  so  far  as  we  can 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEALS         81 

assert  what  might,  could,  would,  or  should  be 
possible  to  a  supposed  Creator  in  a  case  like 
this,  we  may  say  that,  in  extending  such  a  rev- 
elation of  his  nature  or  purposes  to  us,  God 
had  two  methods  open  to  him. 

He  might  have  selected  the  miraculous 
method.  He  might  have  inscribed  truth  upon 
the  firmament,  in  eternal  characters  that  the 
mind  and  eye  of  man  should  have  been  edu- 
cated to  interpret.  The  stars  of  heaven  might 
have  composed  his  awful  alphabet  ;  planet  and 
comet  and  sun,  nebula  and  meteor,  might  have 
formed  and  punctuated  those  mystical  words  ; 
each  heavenly  body  might,  without  interfer- 
ence with  its  individual  destiny  or  value,  have 
been  by  a  divine  freak  so  blocked  out  as  to 
contribute  to  the  formation  of  the  magnificent 
characters  which  were  to  enlighten  this  small 
and  ignorant  planet  that  w^e  happen  to  call 
our  own.  At  twilight,  men  might  have  stood 
to  watch  the  splendor  of  these  hieroglyphs 
deepen  down  into  the  night,  and  read,  "  The 
heavens  are  the  work  of  thy  fingers,"  where 
now  they  glance  at  the  flaming  frame-work  of 
the  southern  cross ;  or  spelled  out,  "  God  is 
love,"  where  we  idly  follow  Venus  rising  from 
the  sea. 


82        WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

Or  God  might  have  uttered  truth  articu- 
lately to  human  ears.  He  might  have  taught 
the  waves  of  the  sea  a  celestial  syntax  to  which 
terrestrial  hearing  should  be  attuned.  The 
volcano  might  have  been  tamed  to  use  his 
dread  vocabulary.  The  sirocco  and  the  cy- 
clone might  have  spoken  with  an  inexorable 
definiteness.  Hail  might  have  cried  rebuke. 
Flowers  might  have  whispered  comfort. 
Birds  might  have  sung  of  heaven.  Men  might 
have  bowed  to  catch  the  least  accent  of  the 
midnight  wind  in  desert  places,  while  it  called  : 
"  Fear  thou  not,  for  I  am  with  thee."  Or  we 
might  have  listened  to  the  mighty  lips  of  Ni- 
agara chanting,  to  what  a  musician  claims  to 
have  discovered  as  the  "  Niagara  chord,"  a 
Gloria  in  Excelsis  Deo  which  the  heart  would 
have  stood  still  to  hear. 

Or  the  awful  veil  between  this  and  the  un- 
known world  might  have  been  rent  in  twain. 
The  mute  lips  of  the  grave  might  have  moved. 
The  dead  might  have  answered  to  the  wail  of 
the  ages.  Our  starved  arms  might  have 
clasped  them  for  the  instant  which  would  have 
been  worth  all  agony. 

"Oh,  for   five   minutes   with   my   Jean!  " 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEALf        83 

cried  Carlyle,  desolate  upon  liis  fame.  Mys- 
tery could  have  relented  and  silence  spoken, 
the  famine  of  the  heart  been  fed,  the  palsy  of 
the  faith  been  freed.  We  need  not  have 
beaten  the  breath  of  our  souls  out  against  the 
barred  "fates  of  death.  "  The  touch  of  a  van- 
ished  hand  "  could  have  set  at  rest  our  drear- 
iest doubt  forever.  From  the  sealed  lips  of 
our  dearest  dead  we  could  have  learned,  and 
never  questioned  after,  who  is  the  Resurrec- 
tion and  the  Life. 

One  other  method  was  open  to  God  in  ex- 
tending a  special  revelation  to  man.  He 
could  act  upon  the  legal  fibre  of  the  world. 
It  was  in  his  power  to  pursue  a  course  of  con- 
duct in  harmony  with  his  own  system  ;  to  act 
in  accordance  with  laws  which  he  had  already 
established  ;  to  reach  man  by  human  means ; 
to  avoid,  as  far  as  possible,  the  shock  and 
strain  of  admitting  what  we  are  accustomed, 
with  great  looseness  of  phraseology,  to  call 
higher  laws ;  to  neglect  in  the  main  the  spo- 
radic and  the  startling;  to  respect  premise 
and  conclusion,  form  and  dignity ;  to  select 
the  orderly  method  of  revealing,  as  he  did 
the  same  in  creating,  as  he  does  in  preserving, 


84        WBAT  DOES  REVELATION  BE  VEAL? 

as  he  has  in  governing.  This  he  has  se- 
lected. It  will  be  found,  I  think,  if  we  con- 
sider carefully,  that  he  has  adopted  the  natu- 
ral method,  with  such  emphatic  distinctness 
as  to  leave  us  astonished  at  the  chiaro-oscuro 
theories  which  theology  has  struggled  to  im- 
pel upon  the  credulity  or  reluctance  of  the 
world,  as  media  of  approach  to  a  compara- 
tively simple  fact. 

The  Bible,  in  short,  is  not  a  miracle. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  many,  if  not 
most,  of  the  polemic  mistakes  made  by  the  op- 
ponents of  the  Christian  Revelation  have  their 
root  in  the  assumption  that  it  claims  to  be  a 
miracle.  Skeptical  exegesis  had  the  supreme 
opportunity  of  the  century  in  her  hands  when 
the  growth  of  modern  thought  struggled,  like 
a  Chinese  child  malformed  in  an  earthen  vase, 
against  distorting  theories  of  inspiration. 

Instead  of  toiling  with  her  mythical  theory 
her  legendary  theory,  her  naturalistic  theory, 
her  literary  theory,  dissent  might  have  turned 
upon  us  and  said  :  "  Your  Bible  is  not  outside 
of  law,  but  within  it,  and  yet  your  Bible 
still."  But,  since  unbelief  lacks  the  construc- 
tive imagination,  as  well  as  the  spiritual  preju- 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL f         85 

dice  clearly  necessary  to  such  a  result,  it  has 
been  left  for  the  slower  but  subtler  scholarship 
of  modern  faith  to  give  to  the  world  the  only 
theories  upon  which  it  can  hope  a  hundred 
years  hence  to  keep  any  Bible  at  all. 

It  would  be  difficult  to  find  another  word  in 
the  language  which  has  been  so  wrenched  as 
•  the  word  inspiration.  It  may  belong  to  that 
series  comprising  God,  the  Soul,  Immortality, 
of  which  it  has  been  said  that  they  never  can 
present  the  same  idea  to  any  two  minds  ;  but 
let  us  take  the  liberty  of  doubting  this,  and 
say,  rather,  that  inspiration  offers  as  much 
fixity  and  definiteness  to  thought  as  any  other 
kind  of  development  can.  What  we  call  in- 
spiration is  a  growth.  It  unfolds  with  history 
and  like  history.  It  is  subject  to  evolution, 
like  the  race.  It  develops  like  the  body,  of 
which  the  particles  undergo  renewal  every  few 
years,  yet  it  remains  the  same  body  still.  What 
it  was,  it  is,  and  is  not  now.  What  it  is  it 
will,  and  yet  it  will  not,  be  in  fifty  years. 

In  the  matter  of  Biblical  inspiration,  if  in 
any,  we  are  to  expect  change  as  we  have  ex- 
perienced it,  in  applied  scholarship,  in  deep- 
ening wisdom,  in  spiritual  illumination,  and  in 


86  .      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

the  laws  of  interpretation  as  affected  by  these 
things  and  others  not  yet  within  the  scope 
of  our  perception.  There  is  no  life  without 
change.  Inspiration  is  the  breathing  in  of 
life. 

It  would  be  as  impossible  for  the  thoughtful 
world  to  hold  to-day  that  attitude  toward  the 
Bible  which  appears,  for  instance,  in  the 
Augsburg  Confession,  as  it  would  have  been 
for  Solomon  to  write  Butler's  Analogy,  or  for 
Noah  to  have  built  an  elevated  railway.  But 
it  would  be  equally  impossible  for  the  Bible 
to  hold  the  same  attitude  toward  the  world. 
If  it  had  proved  an  obstinate  thing,  it  would 
now  be  an  obsolete  one.  If  there  had  been  no 
moral  elasticity  in  it,  it  would  before  this  have 
been  as  dead  as  the  worship  of  Moloch.  Life 
is  motion,  renewal,  promise.  It  is  only  death 
which  does  not  stir.  John  Robinson,  at  Ley- 
den,  said  one  of  the  eternal  things  when  he 
cried :  "  There  is  more  light  yet  to  break 
from  God's  word  !  " 

Let  us  assume  that  the  Bible  is,  above  all 
things  else,  a  natural  book ;  that  God,  in  design- 
ing it,  followed  that  beautiful  "  law  of  parsi- 
mony" which  is  so  justly  dear  to  instructed 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL f         87 

human    minds.     Let  us  suppose  that  he  chose 
the  orderly  form  of  communication  in  prefer- 
ence to  the  extraordinary,  for  reasons  which 
appeal  to  our  own  intellectual  standards  ;  that 
he  selected  natural  illustrations  of  his  purpose 
when  he  could,  and  fell  back  upon  the  super- 
natural only  when  he  must ;  that  it  is  incum- 
bent  upon  us  to  bring  to  this  book  exactly  the 
same  qualities,  as  readers,  which  we  should  to 
any  other  important  work ;  that  it  will  bear  the 
same,  that  it  deserves  the  same,  and  demands 
the  same ;  and  that  if  these  qualities  are  of  the 
clearest  mental  and  purest   moral   type,   the 
book  may  stand  or  fall  by  their  sentence,  and 
ought   to.     I   know  of  no  other   assumption 
which  can  fit  a  mind  to  approach  a  work  pre- 
senting the  claims  of  this.     Precisely  in  pro- 
portion   to  the  greatness  of  a  call  upon  our 
credulity  must  we  cultivate  the  impartial  and 
dispassionate  faculties  upon  whose  healthful- 
ness  and  energy  the  entire  value  of  our  conclu- 
sions rests.     The   church   has   often   suffered 
herself  to  forget  this  simple  law. 

If  the  Bible  is  a  natural  book,  it  must  be 
subject  to  natural  rules  of  interpretation.  If, 
as  we  noticed  at  the  outset,  it  prove  a  sharp 


88         WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  B  EVE  ALT 

challenge  to  the  human  intellect,  this  argues 
nothing  against  its  demands,  but  is  rather  so 
far  in  their  favor. 

It  is  not  true,  as  we  are  in  the  habit  of  say- 
ing lightly,  that  all  great  things  are  simple. 
It  is  true  that  all  really  great  things  can  be 
understood,  but  there  is  the  grandeur  of  com- 
plexity as  well  as  of  simplicity.  The  arts 
make  this  very  clear.  Music  has  food  for  all 
kinds  of  human  hunger.  She  never  gives  a 
stone  for  bread,  though  to  the  most  earthy  of 
natures.  It  is  impossible  to  observe  the  faces 
in  a  great  audience,  listening  to  great  music, 
without  an  awed  sense  of  a  power  so  diverse 
as  to  be  almost  divine.  So  the  Bible  is  at 
once  simple  and  complex :  sufficiently  intelli- 
gible to  the  untaught ;  sufficiently  daunting  to 
the  thinker  — who  ought,  therefore,  the  more  to 
respect  it.  It  has  been  compared  to  a  stream, 
so  deep  that  an  elephant  can  swim  in  it ;  so 
shallow  that  a  lamb  could  wade  across  it. 

So  science,  again,  dares  her  disciple  on  by 
difficulty.  "  Is  it  much  for  me,"  said  Kepler, 
"  that  men  should  not  accept  my  discovery  ? 
When  the  Almighty  waited  six  thousand  years 
for  one   to    see  what    he  had   made,  I  may 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  EEVEALf       89 

surely  wait  two  hundred  for  oue  to  understand 
what  I  have  seen." 

In  all  other  forms  of  revelation,  the  more 
closely  organized  the  material,  the  better  in- 
structed minds  like  it.  One  of  the  greatest  of 
contemporaneous  philosophers  has  taught  us 
that  development  proceeds  from  the  indefinite 
to  the  definite,  and  from  simplicity  to  com- 
plexity. Why  make  an  exception  of  Biblical 
revelation  ?  Why  expect  to  eliminate  from  it 
all  elements  of  perplexity,  and  all  conditions 
of  toiling  attention  ?  Why  even  all  possibility 
of  misapprehension  ?  Or  why  except  it  from 
that  lower  law,  as  common  as  it  is  unflattering 
to  human  nature,  which  leads  us  to  admit  that, 
the  more  deeply  a  thing  must  be  sought,  the 
better  it  is  prized  ? 

Suppose  we  had  been  given  the  twenty-third 
Psalm  inscribed  by  the  lightning  upon  the 
foreheads  of  our  hills.  How  soon  should  we 
have  explained  it  away  as  an  instance  of  sub- 
conscious cerebration  ?  If  the  soul  once 
dearer  to  us  than  our  own  had  returned  from 
the  dead  to  whisper,  "  Thou  shalt  not,"  in  some 
convulsive  moral  emergency,  would  it  have  al- 
ways found  a  listener?  Alas,  would  it  have 
always  had  a  welcome  ? 


90        WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

I  think  it  is  possible  for  us  to  conceive  that 
it  may  not  be  an  easy  matter  for  the  Ahnighty 
to  gain  a  hearing  in  a  human  heart,  and  to  un- 
derstand that  any  method  of  communication 
must  have  its  disadvantages. 

That  none  can  be  perfect  when  he  has  to 
deal  with  such  imperfect  material,  is  a  fore- 
gone conclusion.  Out  of  a  disabled  organ, 
what  master  brings  the  absolute  chord  ? 

It  is  easier  to  say  what  the  present  educated 
views  of  inspiration  and  interpretation  are 
not,  than  what  they  are.  An  unclerical  writer 
who  should  attempt  strictly  to  define  the  pre- 
ponderant belief  of  the  church  to-day  upon  a 
matter  so  delicate  as  the  nature  of  Revelation 
would  have  a  thankless  and  a  useless  task. 

The  curse  of  all  transitional  times  is  upon 
us :  no  man  represents  such  a  period ;  none 
can  fitly  record  it  till  it  is  past. 

A  few  things,  however,  it  is  possible,  with 
misrepresentation  of  none,  and  justice  to  all, 
to  observe.  Progressive  Christian  scholarship 
no  longer  believes  in  what  was  called  verbal 
inspiration.  We  are  not  taught  that  the 
Bible,  as  a  product  of  inspiration,  is  a  book 
whose  language  was  originated,  corrected,  and 


WHAT  DOES  REVEL  ATI  OX  REVEAL?         91 

revised  by  the  divine  Author  ;  or,  as  Webster 
gives  it,  "  in  which  the  very  words  and  forms 
of  expression  of  the  divine  message  are  com- 
municated to  the  inspired  author." 

No  truly  educated  preacher  teaches  that  the 
awful  God,  in  such  a  sense,  wrote  the  Song  of 
Solomon.  We  do  not  hold  that  the  Almighty 
troubled  himself  about  the  cloak  that  Paul  for- 
got at  Troas.  No  exegete  calls  the  All-wise 
Being  to  account  for  the  discrepancies  between 
Matthew  and  John.  The  theory  that  the 
mind  of  God  peremptorily  dictated  the  com- 
position of  the  Bible,  in  all  its  minutiae,  as  the 
mind  of  Shakespeare  permeated  Hamlet,  and 
the  hand  of  Shakespeare  directed  it,  is  a  the- 
ory already  gone  with  the  incredible  nonsense 
known  as  the  doctrine  of  imputed  sin,  which 
would  have  held  you  or  me  responsible  for  the 
guilt  of  Eden. 

These  things  are  so  well  understood  by  in- 
telligent believers,  that  any  skeptical  writer 
who  asserts  the  contrary  foredooms  himself  to 
a  fine  dilemma :  he  carries  upon  the  face  of 
his  assertion  proof  of  an  ignorance  which  unfits 
him  to  discuss  the  subject,  or  else  of  a  moral 
obliquity   in    the    representation  of  facts  for 


92         WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL  f 

which  the  courtesies  of  controversy  have  no 
permissible  name.  He  either  does  not  know 
the  true,  or  he  circulates  the  false. 

It  may  be  said  once  again  that  the  most 
modern  Christian  scholarship  —  and,  in  saying 
this,  I  mean  even  evangelical  scholarship  — 
no  longer  contentedly  accepts  what  is  known 
as  plenary  inspiration.  Plenary  inspiration  I 
understand  to  be  the  theory  that  the  mind  of 
God,  while  not  dictating  the  language  of  the 
canonical  writers,  yet  exercised  a  compelling 
and  pervading  influence  upon  them  as  to  mo- 
tive, matter,  and  manner  ;  that  they  were  the 
instruments  of  his  thought,  as  the  keys  are  of 
the  musician's  thought,  and  that  the  whole  of 
the  Bible,  from  the  Pentateuch  to  the  Apoca- 
lypse, is  in  this  sense  inspired  —  the  immedi- 
ate work  of  the  divine  Author.  Worcester's 
definition  is,  "  That  kind  of  inspiration  which 
excludes  all  mixture  of  error."  Professor 
Parks's  theory  of  inspiration  keenly  defines 
it  as  "  such  an  influence  over  the  writers  of 
the  Bible  that  all  their  teachings  which  have  a 
religious  character  are  trustworthy." 

One  distinguished  English  clergyman,  in- 
deed, is  quoted  as  saying :  "  Each  book  [of  the 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  EEVEALt        93 

Bible]  is  unique,  a  solitary  miracle  of  its  class 
in  human  history."  To  this  an  American 
philosopher  in  sympathy  with  what  are  called 
the  orthodox  bodies  of  believers  replies : 
"  These  are  the  assertions  of  men  concerning 
the  Scriptures  rather  than  the  assertions  of  the 
Scriptures  concerning  themselves." 

It  would  be  easy  to  cite  quotations  in  har- 
mony with  this  spirit,  but  our  limits  will  be 
crowded  without  them.  It  is  mainly  impor- 
tant, for  our  purpose  here,  to  understand  that 
the  Christianity  of  to-day  is  not  founded  upon 
imbecile  liberalism,  or  hysteric  emotionalism, 
or  defunct  theology.  We  are  no  longer  deal- 
ing with  a  stage  of  religious  culture  capable 
of  the  pious  lottery  known  as  sortilege,  whereby 
the  accidental  turning  of  a  leaf  in  the  Bible 
might  decide  the  fate  of  a  life,  or  of  an  army. 
Nor  have  we  to  do  with  the  advance  of  spirit- 
ual enlightenment  which  could  lead  a  father  to 
baptize  his  baby :  "  He-that-believeth-not-on- 
Jesus-Christ-shall-be-damned."  Nor  with  a 
theory  of  Biblical  interpretation  formulated  in 
a  theology  which  could  require  a  girl  to  de- 
clare herself  willing  to  be  sent  to  hell  if  it  were 
the  will  of  God. 


94         WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

To  attack  a  man  for  the  faith  of  his  great- 
grandfather is  only  next  to  ascribing  to  him 
the  sin  of  Adam,  and  ranks  the  rationalist 
among  the  barbarians  at  whom  he  sneers. 

There  is  something  pathetic  in  the  persist- 
ence with  which  unbelievers  of  a  certain  type 
fire  away  at  buried  creeds.  It  is  like  a  can- 
nonade in  a  cemetery.  Who  is  hit  ?  Count 
your  bleeding  ghosts.  Seek  not  the  living 
among  the  dead.  About  face,  if  you  would 
find  a  breathing  foe  ! 

Intelligent  Christians  to-day  no  more  sup- 
pose^ that  babies  go  to  hell  than  Strauss  did. 
A  growing  proportion  of  such  Christians  do 
not  believe  that  the  Bible  teaches  the  doctrine 
of  an  eternal  hell  at  all.  Instructed  believers 
no  more  think  that  the  majority  of  the  hu- 
man race  are  damned  than  Theodore  Parker 
thought  it.  Even  the  representative  theo- 
logian of  the  old-school  orthodox  faith  in  this 
country  taught  in  his  class-room  that  the  ma- 
jority of  men  are  saved.  The  representative 
theologian  of  the  new  school  is  accustomed, 
before  his  students,  to  compare  the  number  of 
the  lost  to  the  number  of  the  saved  as  the  in- 
mates of  our  prisons  to  the  population  outside 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL  f        95 

of  them.  The  modern  Christian  pulpit  does 
not  teach  that  heathen  who  never  heard  of 
Christ  cannot  be  saved.  The  Christian  parish 
does  not  learn  that  faith  without  character  ever 
carried  one  single  soul  to  heaven.  We  do  not 
hold  that  hell  is  a  lake  of  material  fire.  We 
do  not  hold  that  we  are  unable  to  do  right 
when  we  wish  to.  Few  of  us  think  that  God 
willfully  foreordained  some  of  his  children  to 
endless  torture  and  some  to  endless  peace,  and 
that  we  cannot  help  ourselves,  but  must  do  as 
we  were  predestined  to  do,  and  abide  the  con- 
sequences and  bless  him  for  it.  We  do  not 
believe  that  saints  in  heaven  are  happier  for 
the  sight  of  devils  in  hell.  We  do  not  believe 
that  God  gets  angry.  We  do  not  believe  that 
Christ  died  to  satisfy  the  "  vengeance  "  of  his 
loving  Father  and  ours.  We  do  not  believe 
that  there  is  nothing  good  and  beautiful  and 
true  in  unconverted  human  nature.  We  do 
not  believe  that  there  may  not  be  virtue  in 
very  bad  people.  We  do  not  believe  that  the 
merciful  and  marked  growth  of  character,  to 
which  the  church  has  given  the  name  of  regen- 
eration, must  of  necessity  take  the  form  of  a 
spiritual  convulsion  and* jerk  itself  under  the 


96         WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

metliods  of  a  revival,  or  the  iron  limits  of  a 
creed.  We  do  not  believe  that  the  Almighty 
is  ignorant  of  the  laws  of  heredity,  or  that 
he  overlooks  the  pressure  of  circumstance  on 
human  character.  We  do  not  believe  that  he 
ever  created  a  soul,  the  least,  the  lowest,  the 
most  denied,  the  most  sorely  bestead  by  life, 
and  pushed  it  aside  as  nature  and  the  modern 
philosopher  do,  as  an  unfit  survivor,  beneath 
his  careful  respect  and  personal  tenderness. 
We  do  not  believe  that  he  does  not  love  poor 
wretches  better  than  we  do.  We  do  not  be- 
lieve that  he  will  not  treat  them  better  than 
we  should.  We  do  not  believe,  and  our 
scholars  do  not  teach  us  that  our  Bible  re- 
quires us  to  believe  these  things. 

Neither  do  we  believe  that  God  made  the 
world  in  six  days  of  twenty-four  hours  each  ; 
that  Moses  may  not  have  absorbed  a  great 
deal  of  Egyptian  culture  ;  nor  that  the  early 
Jews  were  not  barbarians  who  acted  and  were 
treated  accordingly  ;  nor  that  David  and  Solo- 
mon were  ideal  modern  Christians  ;  nor  that 
Matthew  and  Luke  were  skilled  as  genealo- 
gists ;  nor  that  the  substance  of  the  Golden 
Rule  had    never   been   taught    before    Christ 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  ME  VEAL  f        97 

taught  it ;  nor  that  Gautama,  and  Mohammed, 
and  Confucius  did  not  say  a  great  deal  that 
was  true.  Nor  do  we  assert  that  Moses  and 
Paul  knew  as  much  science  as  Herbert  Spen- 
cer ;  we  simply  suggest,  let  me  say  in  passing, 
that  the  Omniscient  may. 

Though  at  the  risk  of  being  met  by  certain 
of  my  fellow-Christians  with  the  historic  reply 
of  Priscilla  to  John  Alden,  I  think  I  have  not 
ventured  too  much  in  saying  that,  whatever 
else  the  Scriptures  mean  or  give  to  modern 
belief,  these  are  among  the  things  which  they 
do  not  reveal. 

Many  of  the  dogmas  attributed  to  us  exist 
now  only  upon  the  lips  or  the  pages  of  our 
opponents.  Our  young  people  are  familiar 
with  them  chiefly  in  skeptical  literature. 

Our  educated  pulpit  does  not  teach  them, 
our  pews  do  not  demand  them,  our  press  does 
not  circulate  them,  our  scholars  smile  at  them, 
our  saints  have  outgrown  them.  Our  exploded 
theories  provide  occupation  still  for  anxious 
and  aimless  infidels  of  a  certain  sort,  but 
Christian  scholarship  must  pass  them  with  tke 
silence  which  is  the  only  practicable  reply  of 
any  science  to  any  charlatanism. 


98         WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

Where  is  t"he  Christian  apologist  who  taunts 
Science  with  her  abandoned  outposts?  Who 
accuses  her  because  George  Washington  was 
bled  to  death?  Who  denounces  her  because 
no  physician  in  Europe  over  the  age  of  forty 
accepted  Harvey's  discovery  of  the  circulation 
of  the  blood  ?  Yet  such  jeers  were  on  a  level 
with  the  hue  and  cry  to  which  scholars  like 
Tischendorf,  or  Robertson  Smith,  or  Bishop 
Lightfoot  are  expected  to  give  chase. 

Let  us  remember  that  systematic  religious 
belief  is  a  science,  as  well  as  botany  or  physi- 
ology ;  like  other  sciences,  subject  to  human 
mistake,  correction,  and  slow  development ; 
that  Revelation  has  no  more  done  revealing 
than  the  cell-theory,  or  the  theory  of  spon- 
taneously moving  plants ;  and  that  we  are  to 
regard  the  Bible,  not  as  a  splendidly  wrought 
sarcophagus,  but  as  the  bed  of  a  deep  and 
magnificent  ocean,  wherein  is  hid  treasure 
that  the  life  of  a  man,  or  a  race,  may  dive  for 
and  not  exhaust. 

Bearing  this  clearly  in  mind,  the  first  thing 
which  we  observe  about  the  Bible  is  that  it 
is  a  human  history,  written  by  men,  and  for 
men,  and  to  be  judged   by  human  standards. 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  HE  VEAL  f        99 

Whatever  God  has  to  do  with  it  is  for  us  a 
matter  of  inference,  not  of  assumption.  What- 
ever be  the  supernatural  element  in  it,  we  are 
to  decide  as  a  result,  not  as  a  condition,  of 
our  study  of  the  book.  We  are  not  to  bring 
to  this  study  an  a  priori  conviction  that  the 
whale  did,  any  more  than  that  he  did  not, 
swallow  Jonah. 

All  that  any  believer  in  the  Bible  has  a 
right  to  ask,  or  needs  to  ask,  is  that  it  should 
be  subjected  to  the  same  historical  laws 
which  govern  other  books.  If  historical  sci- 
ence should  do  away  with  the  personality  of 
Adam,  —  what  then  ?  The  believer  should 
be  the  last  to  insist  upon  it  for  the  truth's 
sake  ;  the  reality  of  Revelation  is  not  affected 
by  the  surrender  of  this  or  that  trifling  detail 
or  theory ;  it  would  be  ruined  by  an  evasion 
of  truth.  If  the  Bible  cannot  stand  the  same 
tests  with  other  histories,  we  want  to  know 
it,  and  we  want  to  be  the  first  to  know  it. 

It  is  the  belief  of  careful  Christian  scholar- 
ship, as  it  is  the  concession  of  the  fairest  skep- 
tical learning,  that  the  book  stands  the  test. 
Renan  says  of  the  Gospels :  "  All,  in  my 
judgment,  date  back  to  the  first  century,  and 


100      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

they  are  substantially  by  the  authors  to  whom 
they  are  attributed." 

We  have  a  human  history  of  at  least  equal 
claims  with  others ;  with,  at  all  events,  no 
more  than  their  share  of  errors,  inconsisten- 
cies, and  difficulties  ;  to  be  handled  with  the 
same  critical  skill  and  honor  as  Josephus  and 
Xenophon  and  Grote ;  and  was  it  not  Les- 
sing  who  said,  "  If  Livy  and  Dionysius  and 
Polybius  and  Tacitus  are  so  candidly  and 
liberally  treated  that  we  do  not  stretch  them 
on  the  rack  for  a  syllable,  why  should  not 
Matthew  and  Mark  and  Luke  and  John  be 
treated  as  well "  ? 

We  shall  not,  however,  quarrel  with  him 
who  demands  that  the  Scriptures  be  handled 
with  greater  critical  skill  than  other  histories ; 
their  claims  are  greater,  and  may  require  it ; 
but  we  insist  that,  for  the  same  reason,  the  in- 
tellectual and  moral  candor  t)f  the  critic  shall 
be  guarded  in  proportion  to  the  size  of  the 
subject  and  the  cause  at  stake.  No  human 
history  has  received  and  endured  the  critical 
strain  which  has  been  brought  to  bear  upon 
the  Christian  Scriptures.  A  German  scholar 
once  wrote  a  keen  little  book,  in  which  he  ap- 


J     i  >  )    J 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL?     101 

plied  to  the  personality  of  Martin  Luther  the 
same  kinds  of  historical  methods  which  have 
been  exercised  upon  that  of  Christ,  thereby 
proving  the  general  untrustwortbiness  of  the 
fact  of  Luther.  Another  skillful  writer  has,  by 
a  similar  treatment,  shown,  with  marked  effect, 
that  Caesar  was  never  assassinated.  Whate- 
ley's  application  of  this  principle  to  Napoleon 
is  a  familiar  instance  in  the  same  direction. 

Whatever  Revelation  reveals,  then,  it  can- 
not be  too  clearly  emphasized  that  it  reveals 
by  sifting  through  the  hard,  fine  sieve  of  hu- 
man history.  The  natural  way  God  chose,  and 
chose  it  in  this  most  natural  form.  We  have 
to  deal  with  the  records  of  an  ancient  people  ; 
with  their  remoteness  and  barbarism,  their 
politics,  progress,  and  decline  ;  with  their  su- 
perstitions and  faith,  their  virtues  and  vices, 
their  pretensions  and  claims ;  and,  further, 
with  whatever  moral  or  spiritual  objects  the 
internal  evidence  of  the  Book  may  offer  as 
sufficient  reasons  for  the  selection  of  this  par- 
ticular people  for  the  position  of  extraordinary 
'importance  which  their  Scriptures  have  given 
them  in  the  world's  thought. 

The  Bible  reveals  once  more,  in  a  degree 


c      < 


(         <  C         t     (  ( 


I  <     "■  lift 

<  >,  /       , ,    ,  . 


'    '   '        < 


102      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL f 

unequaled  by  any  human  production,  a  power 
of  adaptation  to  human  consciousness.  "  The 
Bible  Jinds  me,"  said  Coleridge,  "  as  nothing 
else  does."  Assuming  that  God  had  preferred 
the  literary  method  and  had  chosen  a  collection 
of  Hebrew  chronicles,  poems,  and  letters  as 
the  medium  of  communicating  to  men  some- 
thing of  value  which  Nature  had  not  expressed, 
it  would  be  expected  that  he  would  appeal,  so 
far  as  his  media  permitted,  to  that  which  un- 
derlies all  philosophy  and  defies  all  dogma- 
tism. "  There  is  a  point  of  view  beyond  the 
sphere  of  philosophy,"  says  Goethe,  "  namely, 
that  of  common  sense."  There  are  a  few 
things  about  ourselves  which  we  kjiow ;  to 
these  the  Bible  addresses  itself  with  a  subtlety 
and  a  force  which,  to  be  sure,  taken  by  them- 
selves, it  is  not  necessary  to  call  supernatural, 
but  which  certainly  transcend  anything  which 
we  have  yet  experienced  in  other  literary  in- 
fluences. 

Men  have  misery,  an  uneasy  conscience, 
disenchantment  with  life,  reluctance  to  death, 
desire  for  eternal  existence,  and  isolation  of 
the  soul.  We  do  not  turn  to  our  Dante  for 
such  a  plain,  old-fashioned  thing  as  comfort ; 


WHA  T  D  0E8  RE  VELA  Tl  ON  RE  VEAL  f     103 

Goethe  has  no  forgiveness  to  offer  a  stained 
nature  shuddering  and  cowering  before  itself  ; 
Homer  lends  few  illusions  to  the  unconfessed 
emptiness  of  our  days ;  Virgil  does  not  draw 
the  sting  from  the  fang  of  our  last  hours ; 
Shakespeare  cannot  promise  us  immortality, 
nor  draw  near  to  the  inner  solitude  in  which 
all  men  walk,  but  the  sensitive  perish. 

Great  grief  and  great  guilt  drive  mankind 
where  they  can  get  something  greater.  Strong 
fear  and  strong  hope  hold  us  where  we  can 
find  something  stronger.  Sin  and  suffering 
are  the  deepest  facts  of  life.  Keal  emotions 
are  a  keen  touchstone  to  the  real.  The  com- 
mon crises,  the  plebeian  forces,  the  plain,  uni- 
versal fates  and  chances,  test  our  prophets  and 
ourselves. 

"  Though  I  am  a  Hellene  at  heart,"  con- 
fessed the  invalid  Heine,  "  the  book  has  not 
only  well  entertained  me,  but  also  deeply  edi- 
fied me.  What  a  book !  .  .  .  The  whole 
drama  of  humanity  (is)  in  this  book.  It  is 
the  book  of  books  —  Biblia." 

"  Need  you  ask  ?  "  said  the  dying  Scott, 
when  requested  to  name  the  book  which  he 
would  have  read.  "  Need  you  ask  ?  There  is 
but  one." 


1 04      WIIA  T  D  OES  RE  VELA  Tl  ON  RE  VEAL  ? 

Quarrel  with  it  as  we  may,  doubt  it  as  we 
often  must,  perplexed  by  it  as  we  sball  always 
be,  criticise  it  as  we  dare,  neglect  it  as  we 
do,  the  fact  remains,  and  remains  one  of  au- 
gust significance,  that,  in  those  emergencies 
of  life  which  are  fathoms  deep  below  all  in- 
tellectual querulousness  or  self-delusion,  the 
Bible  grasps  us  as  the  very  hand  of  God 
might  do,  if  we  could  find  in  this  fact  alone 
sufficient  proof  that  the  hand  of  God  is  in  it. 
.  We  have  our  infectious  as  well  as  our 
incommunicable  doubts.  Unbelief  is  subject 
to  fashions.  The  scientific  pose  is  so  clearly 
a  la  mode^  it  would  seem  strange  that  it  has 
overlooked  in  the  Bible  by  far  the  most  im- 
portant support  which  can  be  found  for  the 
theories  which  teach  us  to  believe  in  the  evo- 
lution of  the  race. 

Revelation  reveals  the  only  clear  basis  of 
hope  there  is  that  the  world  can  ever  become 
what  unbelieving  science  claims  that  it  will. 

Our  modern  dream  of  humanity  is  nothing 
else  than  Christianity  in  a  mask  domino.  The 
altruism  of  the  prevailing  philosophy  owes  its 
existence  to  the  principles  taught  by  Jesus, 
and  its  influence  to  the  power  of  his  individ- 


WE  AT  DOES  REVELATION  RE  VEAL  f    105 

uality  upon  the  world.  What  is  that  auda- 
cious fantasy  known  as  the  "  invention  of  im- 
mortality "  but  a  cheap  parody  on  the  splendid 
Biblical  promise  of  a  life  hereafter  ? 

Revelation  contains  the  only  true  democ- 
racy. Respect  for  the  despised  may  be  said 
to  have  originated  with  Christ.  He  first  re- 
duced the  capricious  and  inefficient  impulses 
of  human  sympathy  to  a  permanent  force. 
He  taught  the  inexorable  demands  of  poverty 
upon  possession.  He  wrought  havoc  with  the 
criminalities  of  selfish  social  ease.  He  gave 
challenge  to  the  sloth  and  the  slumber  of  hu- 
man fellowship.  He  preached  religious  free- 
dom and  rebuked  superstition. 

The  deference  of  strength  to  weakness,  the 
patience  of  wisdom  with  folly,  the  tenderness 
of  integrity  to  error,  the  claims  of  suffering 
upon  joy,  the  right  of  the  individual  to  his 
own  God,  were  never  powerfully  formulated 
and  practically  illustrated  in  the  same  individ- 
ual until  he  formulated  and  illustrated  them. 
The  so-called  "  religion  of  humanity  "  is  the 
most  amazing  theft  that  the  history  of  phi- 
losophy has  known.  It  has  stolen  from  the 
lips  of  the  Carpenter's  Son  the  principles  of 


106      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL f 

human  progress,  over  which  a  little  knot  of 
scholars  and  scoffers  are  grouped  to-day,  with 
the  expression  of  those  who  discover  the  se- 
cret of  existence.  These  principles,  and  these 
alone,  present  the  only  possible  chance  for  the 
development  of  the  race  from  its  existing 
crudeness  to  the  beautiful  finish  of  which  ma- 
terialist and  believer  dream.  The  theories  of 
the  New  Testament  contain  the  seeds  of  the 
highest  because  the  broadest  culture.  They 
respect  the  people.  They  build  our  hospitals, 
our  asylums,  our  Magdalen  homes,  our  public 
schools,  the  scholarships  in  our  great  universi- 
ties ;  they  open  the  oriental  harems  to  our  fe- 
male physicians,  our  libraries  to  day-laborers, 
our  academies  to  freed  slaves,  our  colleges  to 
women,  our  republics  to  their  citizens.  Blot 
the  philosophy  of  the  Nazarene  out  of  the 
world,  and  these  things  go  with  it.  This  phi- 
losophy, and  this  alone,  places  that  importance 
on  the  individual  which  makes  personal  growth 
possible  upon  any  such  scale  as  to  become  gen- 
eral development. 

Jesus  Christ  taught  the  value  of  the  unit ; 
he  gave  us  this  factor  in  social  statics.  He 
represented  the  enfranchisement  of  faith ;  he 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  BE  VEAL  f    IQJ 

gave  this  basis  to  our  spiritual  science.  Strive 
as  we  would,  we  can  no  more  outgrow  our 
debt  to  him  as  a  social  reformer,  or  the  chief 
apostle  of  religious  freedom,  than  the  wine  can 
disallow  its  own  grapes,  or  the  rainbow  ignore 
the  prism.  "  Let  mental  culture  go  on  ad- 
vancing," admitted  Goethe,  "  let  the  natural 
sciences  go  on  gaining  in  depth  and  breadth, 
and  the  human  mind  expand  as  it  may,  it  will 
ne\^er  go  beyond  the  elevation  and  moral  cul- 
ture of  Christianity  as  it  glistens  and  shines 
forth  in  the  Gospel !  " 

The  remarkable  conformity  of  the  Scrip- 
tures to  personal  consciousness  and  to  uni- 
versal history  is  an  important  argument  in 
favor  of  the  reality  of  the  Biblical  claims,  but 
does  not  seem  to  be  a  final  one.  Let  it  meet 
the  individual  or  the  general  needs  with  what- 
ever force  or  subtlety,  the  demands  of  this 
Book  are  so  tremendous,  if  false  they  are  so 
preposterous,  that  it  ought  to  be  subjected  to 
every  test  of  intellect  and  conscience  that  we 
can  bring  to  bear  upon  it. 

If  we  can  find  anything  else  professing  to 
be  a  revelation  from  God  which  is  less  per- 
plexing,  more    simple,   more   reasonable,    we 


108      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

should  be  bound  to  drop  this.  "  Give  me  a 
better  book,  and  I  will,"  was  the  profound 
reply  of  a  Christian  who  was  asked  to  sur, 
render  the  Bible. 

Candid  unbelievers  readily  acknowledge  the 
superiority  of  the  Christian  to  all  other  Scrip- 
tures. Uncandid  ones  admit  the  same  by  the 
virulence  and  persistence  of  their  defiance  to 
the  Bible. 

"  There  is  no  recognition  in  the  Koran  of 
human  brotherhood."  Many  orientalists  claim 
that  Buddhism  gives  us  no  personal  god.  The 
Edda,  and  the  Zend  A  vesta,  and  the  Vedas 
have  too  many  gods.  The  Sacred  Books  of 
Confucius  offer  little  or  no  hope  of  immortal- 
ity. It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that,  on  the 
whole,  and  to  the  best  of  our  knowledge  and 
belief,  tested  by  that  consensus  of  the  intel- 
ligent and  devout  which  alone  is  competent  to 
pass  judgment  upon  a  question  in  which  the 
spiritual  faculties  as  well  as  the  reasoning 
must  be  qualified  jurors,  our  Bible  reveals  the 
best  explanation  we  have  of  the  phenomena 
of  life. 

It  is  a  mysterious  one,  it  is  an  imperfect 
one,  it  is  a  half-developed  one,  but  it  is  the 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  BE  VEAL  f    109 

best  we  have.  It  is  the  best  we  have,  because 
it  is  the  most  humane ;  therefore,  in  so  far, 
the  most  divine.  It  is  the  most  humane  and 
the  most  divine  because  it  reveals  the  rela- 
tion of  Jesus  Christ  to  the  problem  of  exist- 
ence. 

To  practical  people  of  instructed  intelli- 
gence, but  not  of  the  theological  or  metaphys- 
ical temperaments  which  will  amuse  them- 
selves with  the  casuistries  of  the  thing  to  the 
end  of  human  leisure,  it  seems  to  me  that  the 
whole  matter  resolves  itself  into  something  like 
this : 

We  are  here,  we  know  not  how  or  why.. 
We  are  in  a  world  of  certain  misery  and 
uncertain  pleasure.  Life  is  a  dark  marvel. 
Death  is  a  blind  leap.  The  future  is  silent. 
God  is  a  mystery.  Nature  is  terrible.  Why 
are  we  thrust,  the  pawns  in  an  awful  game  ? 
Why,  why  were  we  tossed,  the  weeds  on  a 
fathomless  sea  ?  What  did  the  Creator  of  the 
earth  mean  by  so  seemingly  cruel  a  waste  of 
human  sensitiveness  and  force  ?  Who  can  find 
him  reasons  for  an  apparently  merciless  ven- 
ture at  world-making?  Here  comes  calmly 
upon  our  bluster  and  battle  a  Book  whose  his- 


110      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL* 

tory  is  so  singular  that  its  unique  pretensions 
scarcely  excite  our  surprise,  however  they  in- 
fluence our  credulity. 

It  assumes  to  declare  to  us  the  existence  of 
a  wise  and  affectionate  God,  whose  children 
we  are,  and  whose  purposes  to  us  it  partially 
explains.  It  presumes  to  treat  us  as  immortal 
souls.  It  dares  to  promise  us  eternal  life.  It 
delights  to  offer  us  that  satisfaction  of  body, 
mind,  and  spirit  known  as  heaven.  It  does 
not  shrink  from  foretelling  the  moral  conse- 
quences of  evil  in  this  or  any  world.  It  al- 
lures us  to  purity.  It  would  comfort  us  in 
sorrow.  It  would  save  us  from  despair.  It 
would  stimulate  confidence  in  the  Author  of 
life,  and  our  trust  in  that  sequel  to  it  which 
follows  death.  It  is  true  that  this  book  fails  to 
tell  us  why  God  made  the  world  at  all.  It  is 
as  silent  as  reason,  it  is  as  dumb  as  the  stars, 
upon  this  tremendous  question.  It  is,  possibly, 
one  of  the  objects  of  our  existence  to  learn  that 
we  are  too  small  to  ask  a  question  of  this  size  ; 
that  divine  motives  are  not  material  for  hu- 
man grasp,  like  fossils,  or  moUusks,  or  typhoid 
fever.  However  that  may  be,  the  Bible  meets 
us  squarely  upon  the  deepest  and  the  highest 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  EEVEALt     111 

question  which  the  finite  intellect  has  the  right 
to  ask:  What,  having  made  us  at  all,  is  God's 
moral  attitude  toward  us?  When  he  thrust 
into  space  this  quivering  ball  of  pain  and 
error,  did  he  mean  well  enough  by  it  to  jus- 
tify the  deed  ? 

Profounder  than  all  our  philosophy,  wiser 
than  all  our  protest,  comes  the  sublime  and 
solitary  answer  :  "  He  so  loved  the  world  that 
he  gave  his  only  Son,^^ 

This  magnificent  reply,  which  theology  has 
distorted  out  of  its  grand  and  simple  propor- 
tions, to  which  science  has  refused  its  supreme 
reasonableness,  the  true  human  heart  and  the 
clear  human  head  have  accepted.  The  contor- 
tions of  faith  and  the  malice  of  doubt  have 
almost  equally  united  to  shake  the  hold  of  this 
great  re-assurance  upon  the  world.  The  world 
will  have  it  in  spite  of  both.  The  world  will 
have  it,  because  it  is  the  best  it  can  get ;  and 
by  all  the  iron  laws  of  common  sense  it  will 
keep  the  best  till  God  or  man  can  offer  it 
something  better. 

The  Bible,  then,  we  say,  is  a  mysterious 
book ;  as  yet  possibly  a  misunderstood,  cer- 
tainly an  ill-understood  one  ;  it  has  been  as 


112      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

much  abused  as  used  ;  it  has  cloaked  amazing 
error  and  shielded  incredible  crime ;  it  has 
been  the  object  of  idolatrous  worship  and  of 
infernal  hate ;  it  has  aroused  almost  all  the 
passions  of  humanity.  The  crude,  emotional 
stages  of  the  world's  life  have  spent  them- 
selves upon  it,  like  weather  on  a  rock.  Now, 
as  we  approach  the  ages  of  disciplined  thought 
and  deepened  spiritual  forces,  the  form  of  the 
conflict  will  change  only  as  much  as  it  must 
intensify. 

Far  be  it  from  me  to  involve  any  other  be- 
liever in  an  individual  conviction,  or  to  claim 
to  represent  the  shifting  and  various  phases  of 
faith  in  the  Christian  church  to-day,  by  a  per- 
sonal theory  of  inspiration,  when  I  say  that 
the  Bible  of  the  future  must  be  interpreted 
chiefly  as  a  biography. 

The  day  may  come  when  our  views  of  the 
divine  purpose,  as  exemplified  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament, will  receive  even  more  modification 
than  they  have  already  done,  and  that  is  very 
great. 

"There  is  no  such  reverential  use  of  the 
truth  as  a  bold  use  of  it,"  finely  says  President 
Bascom.  "No  other  use  implies  the  same 
confidence  in  it." 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL?     113 

The  time  may  be  at  hand,  not  when  all 
element  of  the  supernatural  shall  be  elimi- 
nated from  a  work  which,  so  far  as  we  can  now 
see,  must  retain  a  measure  of  it  as  a  coun- 
tersign of  its  sacred  and  exceptional  errand, 
but  when  the  proportions  of  that  element 
shall  be  perceptibly  decreased.  If  the  Jewish 
Scriptures  should  come  to  be  regarded,  mainly, 
as  the  religious  and  political  records  of  a  peo- 
ple whose  national  importance  the  events  of  the 
New  Testament,  and  these  alone,  explain ;  if 
we  find  ourselves  led  to  subject  their  legends 
and  miracles  to  the  same  intelligent  tests  by 
which  we  have  already  tried  their  cosmogony 
and  chronology,  and  if  the  one  should  share  in 
large  measure  the  same  fate  that  has  overtaken 
the  other  ;  though  Eden  were  an  allegory,  and 
though  God  never  told  Abraham  to  kill  Isaac, 
and  though  we  were  obliged  to  consider  it 
doubtful  whether  Samson  slew  a  thousand 
men  with  the  jaw-bone  of  an  ass,  the  value 
of  the  Bible  would  be  no  more  infrinsred 
than  the  glory  of  the  moon  is  affected  by  the 
"  discouraging  condition  "  of  lunar  theories, 
concerning  which  a  scientific  student  tells  us 
that  her  "  actual  place  in  the  heavens  is  now 


114      WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  REVEAL? 

SO  different  from  her  calculated  place  that  a 
sailor  would  be  misled  by  it,  as  to  his  longi- 
tude, five  miles." 

If,  indeed,  we  come  at  length  to  prize  the 
Old  Testament,  — for  its  matchless  devotional 
literature,  to  be  sure,  its  august  historic  asso- 
ciations and  profound  ministry  to  certain 
forms  of  human  need,  but  mainly  because  it 
represents  the  genealogical  stage  of  that  great 
^Memoir  whose  central  Figure  is  the  hope  of 
the  world,  —  the  power  of  the  Bible  will  no 
more  be  lost  than  the  color  of  the  rose  was 
lost  by  the  discovery  of  the  metamorphosis  of 
plants.  That  majestic  Figure  remains,  and  the 
details  of  its  history  advance  with  increasing 
literary  and  moral  effect,  through  the  precious 
pages  of  the  New  Testament,  to  "their  climax. 
The  Gospels  tell  the  story  and  report  the  in- 
struction of  Christ.  The  Epistles  formulate 
his  theology.  The  Apocalypse  is  a  vision  of 
the  final  mystery  to  which  all  fact  and  all 
faith  are  tending  —  a  vision  seen  by  the  soul 
that  he  loved  best,  and  that  may  have,  must 
have,  absorbed  most  of  the  miracle  of  his  na- 
ture. 

The   biography  marches  on,  with  splendid 


WHAT  DOES  REVELATION  BE  VEAL?     115 

disregard  of  all  petty  criticisms,  to  its  great 
historical  and  ethical  ends.  God  used  such 
material  as  he  had.  He  seems  to  have  cared 
chiefly  to  select  men  who  would  not  lie,  and 
trusted  the  necessary  imperfections  of  such  a 
work,  performed  by  such  instruments  as  he 
could  get,  to  the  good  sense  of  mankind. 

One  might  almost  say  that  it  does  not  seem 
to  have  occurred  to  the  great  Compiler  of 
these  scattered  records  that  the  world  would 
ever  question  the  main  purpose  or  use  of  the 
Bible,  because  the  Jews  killed  their  captives 
or  Matthew  made  a  mistake  in  a  genealogical 
table  !  How  small,  beside  the  loftiness  of  the 
divine  plan  which  overrode  the  human  group- 
ing of  these  humanly  written  records,  shows 
the  peevish  spirit  which  demands  that  he  weed 
the  human  out  of  them,  and  because  he  did 
not  dares  him  to  prove  that  he  had  anything 
to  do  with  them  at  all ! 

Whatever  the  future  of  Biblical  exegesis  may 
bring  forth,  it  is  difficult  to  see  reason  for  believ- 
ing that  the  miracles  of  the  New  Testament  will 
ever  be  entirely  "  explained  away ;  "  though 
that  may  be  a  piece  of  private  conservatism. 
We  have  no  more  right,  as  has  been  well  sug- 


116      WHAT  DOES  REVELATJON  REVEAL f 

gested,  to  assume  that  there  can  be  no  miracle, 
than  that  there  must.  The  facts,  and  the  facts 
alone,  must  make  the  theory.  The  scientific 
basis  of  thought  has  taught  us  as  much  as  this. 
Let  Christianity  be  too  apt  a  pupil  to  forget 
it.  The  evidential  proofs  that  Jesus  possessed 
supernatural  powers  seem  so  far  to  rest  where 
the  other  historical  proof  of  the  narrative 
does ;  and  so  far  both,  or  neither,  are  to  be 
accepted.  But  even  supposing  that  candid 
and  devout  scholarship  should  eventually  leave 
us  little  of  these  miraculous  incidents  except 
the  great  fact  and  symbol  of  the  Resurrection, 
it  is  certain  that  we  should  not  lose  our  Bible 
with  them.  We  should  lose  nothing  unless  we 
lost  the  Christ.  He  is  the  miracle.  Revela- 
tion reveals  him.  He  is  the  message  of  God 
to  man.  Through  him  is  the  divine  law  of- 
fered to  human  obedience.  By  him  all  that 
it  has  pleased  the  Ruler  of  the  world  to  ex- 
plain of  his  moral  government  is  expressed. 
Jesus  Christ  is  Revelation,  and  Revelation  is 
Jesus  Christ. 

The  famous  and  familiar  words  of  Lecky 
come  with  more  force  to  us,  just  here,  than  any 
Christian  estimate  of  this  sacred  personality 
could  exert ; 


WHAT  DOES   REVELATION  BE  VEAL?     117 

"  It  was  reserved  for  Christianity  to  present 
to  the  world  an  ideal  character  which,  through 
all  the  changes  of  eighteen  centuries,  has  filled 
the  hearts  of  men  with  an  impassioned  love. 
...  It  may  be  truly  said  that  the  simple  rec- 
ord of  three  short  years  of  active  life  has  done 
more  to  regenerate  and  soften  mankind  than 
all  the  disquisitions  of  philosophers,  and  than 
all  the  exhortations  of  moralists." 

What  this  principle  of  regeneration  means 
to  the  race  it  is  impossible  for  any  one  not  a 
student  of  human  history  ignorantly  to  de- 
scribe. What  this  means  to  the  individual 
soul  it  is  preposterous  for  any  one  not  in  per- 
sonal rapport  with  Christ  and  his  teachings 
ignorantly  to  decide. 

Here  we  enter  a  phase  of  the  argument 
where  a  certain  advance  in  spiritual  culture  is 
clearly  essential  to  discussion  ;  and  here  those 
who  have,  and  they  who  have  not,  a  conscious- 
ness of  their  own  spiritual  natures,  and  of  the 
famished  needs  and  disused  powers  which 
throb  through  them,  must  stand  apart. 

Kevelation  reveals  less  science,  less  dog- 
matic theology,  less  miracle,  than  we  used  to 
think,  but  more  of  Christ.     The  Bible  is  a 


118      WHA T  D  OES  RE  VELA Tl  ON  RE  VEAL  ? 

frame  of  which  he  is  the  picture.  We  have 
no  right  to  turn  from  it  till  we  have  received 
into,  and  tested  by  our  own,  that  marvelous 
and  mystic  life. 

When  we  have  absorbed  within  ourselves 
his  wide-reaching  philosophy,  his  dazzling  per- 
sonal purity,  his  organic  humanity,  his  supreme 
unselfishness,  —  then,  and  not  till  then,  shall 
we  have  that  ethical  illumination  which  will 
intellectually  fit  us  to  deny  that  the  Bible  re- 
veals the  Science  of  Life. 


IV. 

THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

Life  is  either  a  problem  or  a  play  ;  which, 
will  be  decided  by  temperament  rather  than 
by  circumstance.  The  instinct  of  the  dra- 
matic, the  passion  to  be  pleased,  are  as  com- 
pulsory in  their  way  as  suffering  or  thought. 
Superficiality,  we  must  remember,  may  be  as 
inevitable  as  sensitiveness.  The  man  who 
said  that  for  his  part  he  always  got  away  from 
unhappy  people,  had  either  more  candor  or  less 
tact  than  most  of  his  sort ;  but  it  is  a  sort 
that  can  no  more  be  disregarded  in  an  estimate 
of  the  world  than  any  other  of  the  defective 
classes.  The  impulse  with  which  we  embrace 
or  repulse  the  higher  form  of  fact,  may  be  the 
decisive  trait  that  must  generalize  us  in  a 
classification  of  species  at  which  science  has 
not  yet  arrived. 

Individuality  is   the  one  essential   fact   of 


120     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

life  ;  its  presence,  in  whatever  surplus  or  wry- 
ness,  is  matter  of  calculable  regard,  as  its  ab- 
sence is  of  futile  regret.  There  never  was  a 
wiser  saying  than  his  who  told  us  that  for  our 
faults  of  exuberance  there  might  be  all  possi- 
ble remedies  ;  for  our  deficiencies  —  none.  A 
nicer  distinction  between  defects  and  deficien- 
cies might  further  refine  the  illustration. 

Who  are  they  who  conquer  nature,  create 
kingdoms,  discover  truth,  rule  society,  comfort 
anguish,  and  purify  evil  ?  It  is  truism  to  say : 
the  men  and  women  who  have  been  them- 
selves. Whom  do  we  seek  in  some  famine  of 
the  mind  ?  Not  him  who  conforms,  who  is 
fractional  rather  than  integral.  Or  to  whom 
do  we  turn  when  our  hearts  are  breaking? 
Not  to  the  smoothest,  but  to  the  strongest  per- 
sonality that  is  intelligible  or  available  to  our 
own.  We  all  know  men  who  are  mental  der- 
ricks, hoisting  everybody  within  reach.  We 
have  all  felt  people  who  are  moral  cyclones, 
hurling  everything  out  of  their  track. 

Yet  force  is  not  of  necessity  noisy.  Love 
is  not  boisterous.  The  atmosphere  is  not  ob- 
trusive. A  woman's  will  may  be  silent,  and 
may  "  be  done,"  like  Heaven's.     "  The  strong 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    121 

power  called  weakness  "  has  its  own  kingdom. 
We  may  be  in  the  clutch  of  the  earthquake, 
or  the  slave  of  a  still,  small  voice.  Insistence 
has  many  natures  ;  they  are  alike  only  in  this  : 
that  they  insist. 

The  tendency  of  individuality  is  to  vigor  ; 
and  because  to  vigor,  therefore  to  duration  of 
life.  This  seems  a  very  simple  thing  to  say. 
If  it  be  strictly  true  and  thoroughly  believed, 
it  may  be  seen  to  have  complex  results,  some 
of  which  it  will  be  the  object  of  this  paper  to 
consider ;  not  as  truths  which  can  presume 
to  be  called  new,  but  rather,  by  the  season  of 
prevailhig  thought,  renewed. 

That  the  trend  of  individuality  is  toward 
force  and  permanence,  we  are  reminded  at 
every  turn.  Diffusion  is  feebleness.  Speech 
weakens  feeling.  The  flood  lessens  the  cur- 
rent. Shallowness  produces  evaporation. 
Commonness  reduces  preciousness.  Deep 
emotions  are  perpetuated  ;  mighty  love  means 
constancy,  and  marked  hate  is  incurable. 
Vigorous  characters  reproduce  themselves ; 
emphasized  characteristics  are  hereditary ; 
and  so  on.     The  list  is  practically  endless. 

In  this  last  connection,  we  are  all  more  or  less 


122       THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

familiar  with  the  work  of  modern  science  ;  a 
work  whose  value,  as  we  shall  presently  see, 
only  begins  with  its  physical  aspects,  and  out 
of  which  a  higher  science  has  still  to  be  evolved 
by  a  discoverer  possibly  yet  unborn. 

Our  late  great  apostle  of  natural  science 
has  popularized  for  us  several  indispensable 
terms,  in  which  it  is  as  natural  for  the  mind  to 
think  to-day  as  it  was  for  the  child  Montaigne 
to  exclaim  in  Latin  when  his  father  fainted. 
One  of  these  useful  words  is  Selection.  The 
facts  of  selection  —  natural,  sexual,  and  un- 
conscious —  in  the  history  of  man  and  of  the 
lower  organizations,  are  established  for  intel- 
ligence beyond  the  right  of  ignorance  to  ques- 
tion. These  facts  and  the  meaning  of  the 
facts  are  in  our  primers  now.  The  same  may 
be  said  of  that  most  happy  phrase,  the  strug- 
gle for  existence. 

"Nothing  is  easier,"  says  Darwin  himself, 
"  than  to  admit  in  words  the  truth  of  the  uni- 
versal struggle  for  life,  or  more  difficult  —  at 
least  I  have  found  it  so  —  than  constantly  to 
bear  this  conclusion  in  mind.  Yet,  unless  it  be 
thoroughly  engraved  in  the  mind,  the  whole 
economy  of  nature  .  .  .  will  be  dimly  seen,  or 
quite  misunderstood." 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.      123 

The  apparently  trifling  or  irrelevant  minu- 
tiae crowding'  the  pages  which  lay  bare  to  the 
world  the  curiously  interesting  processes  that 
go  to  the  creation  of  a  great  theory  have  a 
special,  but  not  always  superficially  evident, 
value  in  the  direction  of  our  thought. 

We  are  told,  for  instance,  that  if  the  multi- 
plication from  a  single  pair  of  elephants  were 
unchecked  by  accident  or  death,  in  seven  hun- 
dred and  fifty  years  there  would  be  nineteen 
million  elephants  alive.  We  are  reminded 
that  in  Paraguay  neither  cattle,  horses,  nor 
dogs  run  wild,  because  their  infant  progeny 
are  destroyed  by  a  certain  parasitic  fly,  which 
has  preempted  that  vague^  geographical  region. 
We  read  that  heart' s-ease  and  red  clover  would 
disappear  from  England  if  humble-bees  were 
exterminated  there.  Or  we  hear  of  the  "  walk- 
ing-stick insect,"  which,  that  it  may  protect 
itself  from  danger,  is  made  to  resemble  a 
"  walking-stick  closely  overgrown  with  moss." 
Or  again,  we  are  asked  to  believe  that  the 
ball-and-socket  decorations  on  the  wing-feath- 
ers of  the  Argus  pheasant  are  aesthetically  ap- 
preciated by  the  female  during  courtship.  Or 
our  attention  is  concentrated  upon   the   fact 


124    THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

that  among  the  Kahnucks,  who  practice  the 
custom  of  bridal  races  (the  bride  having  a  fair 
start),  "  no  instance  occurs  of  a  girl  being 
caught  unless  she  has  a  partiality  for  the  pur- 
suer." Or  we  are  told  that  if  human  repro- 
duction were  not  offset  by  mortality,  there 
would  not,  in  a  thousand  years,  be  standing- 
room  upon  the  earth  for  the  progeny  of  man. 
Again,  we  are  reminded  that  the  Holy  Inqui- 
sition killed  off  the  bravest,  freest,  and  most 
independent  minds  of  its  time,  and  thus  appre- 
ciably depleted  Europe  of  her  best  material. 
Or  it  is  suggested  that  the  culture  of  Greece 
and  the  empire  of  Rome  seem  to  have  their 
chief  purpose  and  value  as  subsidiaries  "  to 
the  great  stream  of  Anglo-Saxon  emigration 
to  the  West."  Or  we  are  asked  if  the  idea 
of  a  universal  and  beneficent  Creator  be  not 
the  result,  in  the  mind  of  man,  of  elevation 
"  by  loug-continued  culture." 

The  connection  of  these  rather  burly  state- 
ments with  the  spiritual  future  of  mankind  is 
not  at  first  sight  apparent ;  and,  to  the  merely 
scientific  student,  may  remain  obscure.  Yet 
the  continuity  in  such  a  progression  of  selected 
facts   is   subtle,   and   the   workmanship  nice. 


I 

f 

/ 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.     125 

From  beginning  to  end,  the  link  within  the 
link  is  the  force  of  individuality.  The  relation 
of  individuality  to  spirituality  completes  the 
chain  which,  in  view  of  that  relation,  it  is  here 
our  purpose  to  examine. 

Man  is  born  to  fight  for  his  life.  This  is 
the  upshot  of  the  new  wisdom.  (After  all  it 
is  rather  an  old  wisdom.)  He  has  been  de- 
veloped from  ancestral,  inferior  organizations 
which,  in  turn,  have  had  to  fight  for  their 
lives.  All  the  great  and  little  facts  of  history 
converge  to  this  truth.  Conflict  with  the  ele- 
ments has  mown  down  non-combatants.  The 
attraction  between  the  sexes  has  served  as  the 
great  appreciator  of  personal  values.  Death, 
like  "gray-haired  Saturn,  quiet  as  a  stone,"  has 
stood  guard  against  the  event  of  the  world's 
becoming  uninhabitable  from  excess  of  life. 
Climate,  disease,  accident,  anguish,  love,  war, 
superstition,  even  civilization  itself,  have  each 
served  their  turn  in  the  awful  battle.  All 
are  but  so  many  foes  to  the  new-born  babe. 
Carlyle  put  one  view  of  the  truth  in  his 
rough  way  when  he  said  that  the  ultimate 
question  between  any  two  human  beings  is  : 
"  Can  I  kill  thee  ?   or,  canst  thou  kill  me  ?  " 


126     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

We  rate  by  thousands  of  years  the  age  of 
the  great  design  carved  in  the  Cambodian 
temple,  which  represents  a  wheel  of  incho- 
ate, writhing  forms  —  serpents,  dragons,  mon- 
keys, and  men  —  revolving  in  a  conflict  vast 
and  mysterious,  and  typifying  '*  The  Struggle 
of  Natural  Life  toward  the  Ideal  and  Spir- 
itual." Existence  is  a  challenge.  Circum- 
stance is  the  gauntlet.  Success  is  victory, 
and  failure  is  defeat.  Death  is,  or  may  be, 
escape. 

It  will  be  seen  that  to  say  all  this  is  to  say 
simply  that  the  struggle  for  existence  is  de- 
cided by  the  ratio  of  individuality  to  the  odds. 
Whether  we  have  to  do  with  the  duels  of  mas- 
todons in  a  prehistoric  forest,  or  the  conflict 
of  an  Esquimau  with  the  elements,  or  the 
broken  heart  of  Sappho,  or  the  dying  bed 
of  Keats  ;  whether  we  are  dealing  with  the 
extermination  of  a  tribe  of  Kaffirs,  or  the 
decline  of  an  over-civilized  empire,  or  the  fall 
of  an  outlawed  religion,  the  radical  elements 
of  the  question  are  the  same.  Personality  is 
power.  Behind  every  great  success  is  an  in- 
dividual. There  is  the  absence  or  the  destruc- 
tion of  one  in  every  great  defeat.     Who  con- 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    127 

quers  ?     The  integer.     Who  fails  ?     The  frac- 
tion. 

It  should,  be  remembered,  of  course,  that  in- 
dividuality may  be  subtle  or  strong,  and  that 
conquest  may  be  apparent  or  real.  Success 
may  be  a  matter  of  muscle  or  of  imagination. 
Defeat  may  come  from  brain  or  brawn.  There 
is  victory  of  the  digestion  and  failure  of  the 
temper.  There  is  failure  of  the  nerves  and 
victory  of  the  spirit.  There  is  weakness  of 
the  conscience  and  power  of  the  will.  There 
is  success  in  the  incidental  and  temporary, 
and  there  is  failure  in  the  essential  and  per- 
manent. There  is  deification  of  the  body  and. 
insult  to  the  soul.  There  is  ruin  of  the  body 
and  construction  of  the  soul.  An  untimely 
fit  of  hysteria  may  cost  a  woman  the  intel- 
lectual ambition  of  all  her  days.  A  man  with 
the  prosperities  of  life  in  his  hand  may  lose, 
by  a  rude  word  or  a  selfish  deed,  the  heart 
of  the  woman  who  would  have  been  worth 
to  him  the  world  and  the  glory  thereof.  Of 
Napoleon,  it  has  been  said  by  a  recent  histo- 
rian that  he  was  a  threefold  being,  of  active 
intellect,  imperious  will,  and  deficient  moral 
sense  ;  and,  from  the  hollow  of  that  deficiency, 


128    THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

history  measures  his  surplus  and  his  success. 
Christ  was  called  a  failure  by  his  contem- 
poraries. 

It  needs  no  historian  to  remind  us  that  in- 
dividuality is,  in  fact,  the  result  of  a  conflict 
between  widely  differing  and  by  no  means 
necessarily  obvious  agencies  —  the  effect  of 
counteraction  between  the  evident  and  the  sug- 
gested, or  between  the  seen  and  the  unseen. 

It  needs  no  prophet  to  tell  us  that  this  coun- 
teraction is  to  become  more  complicated  as  it 
is  overtaken  by  civilization  ;  that  the  propor- 
tion of  the  obvious  to  the  latent  is  likely  to  be 
lessened ;  that  the  relativity  of  the  evident  to 
the  suggested  will  undergo  change ;  and  that 
the  ratio  of  the  seen  to  the  unseen  may  be  ex- 
pected to  suffer  mathematical  transference. 

This  is  to  say,  in  brief,  that,  for  a  man  to 
become  a  force,  is  to  be  one  among  diversely 
many,  or  one  through  harmoniously  many 
things.  And,  that  to  become  a  force  in  the 
future,  is  probably  to  be  a  much  less  simple 
matter  than  it  is  now,  or  has  ever  been.  An 
individual,  in  fact,  represents  not  only  a  huge 
amount  of  fighting  capacity,  but  must  repre- 
sent an  increasing  amount  of  tactical  ability. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    129 

A  powerful  personality  may  be  said  to  be 
what  the  Hahnemannians  call  "  a  complex  of 
symptoms." 

The  love  of  life  is  one  of  the  elements  of 
life ;  we  might  say  that  it  is  what  physiolo- 
gists call  one  of  the  "  proximate  principles " 
of  life.  It  is  not  enough  merely  to  say  that 
the  love  of  life  is  normal  —  it  is  life.  The 
most  exhausted  victim  of  existence  will  admit 
that  it  is  his  exhaustion  which  ails  him.  Bul- 
wer  says  somewhere  that  there  is  a  want  more 
fierce  than  the  want  of  food,  more  terrible 
than  the  want  of  sleep  ;  it  is  "  the  want  to 
die."  The  world-weariness  which  is  so  incon- 
testable a  feature  of  our  age  was  foretold 
long  ago  by  an  ancient  Persian  proverb,  which 
ran  :  "  When  men,  in  passing  by  the  newly 
made  grave,  shall  say,  '  Would  God  I  were 
there  ! '  the  end  of  the  world  is  nigh." 

But  even  suicide  in  no  sense  intrudes  upon 
the  main  truth,  simple  as  a  primary  color,  and 
organic  as  the  action  of  the  heart ;  —  that  to 
be  alive  is  to  wish  to  live.  He  who  desires 
death  has  already  begun  to  die.  He  who 
reaches  the  point  of  encroaching  upon  death 


130      THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

is  already  virtually  dead.  Such  encroach- 
ment is  simply  a  form  of  the  universal  fact. 
The  passion  for  self-destruction  is  but  one 
means  of  accomplishing  dissolution.  One  man 
has  typhus  fever ;  one  cuts  his  throat ;  one 
has  consumption  ;  another  has  suicide.  Each 
is  a  disease.  The  incipient  cough  that  nobody 
notices,  and  the  first  toying  with  the  cocked 
pistol  that  nobody  knows,  may  be,  for  phi- 
losophical purposes,  the  same  thing.  This  is 
not  the  place  to  discuss  the  moral  aspects  of 
suicide,  of  which  I  have  here  nothing  to  say. 

The  undeniable  extension  of  self-destruc- 
tion, as  tabulated  by  the  best  statisticians  of 
the  subject  to-day,  only  substantiates  the  pre- 
mise in  a  high  sense.  It  is  reluctantly  ad- 
mitted by  some  of  the  bleakest  materialists 
among  these  statisticians  that  one  of  the  pre- 
vailing causes  of  the  increase  of  suicide  is  the 
increase  of  religious  unbelief.  This  is,  per- 
haps, the  subtlest  illustration  yet  in  hand  of 
our  point  —  setting  quite  aside  its  use  in  a 
didactic  sense. 

The  doomed  being  who  anticipates  death 
everlasting,  as  his  part  and  lot  in  the  prob- 
lem of  universal  suffering,  stretches  forth  his 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY,    131 

hand  to  clutch  his  portion,  and  is,  in  effect, 
ah-eady  dead,  because  he  is  to  die.  Death  sets 
in  with  the  passion  for  death.  Life  implies 
the  love  of  life.  Other  things  being  equal, 
the  healthy  body  craves  life.  Other  things 
being  equal,  the  healthy  soul  demands  life.  It 
may  be  said  that  none  of  us  are  ever  actually 
beaten  in  the  battle  of  existence  except  by  un- 
timely death,  by  madness,  or  by  what  it  is 
now  a  little  old-fashioned  to  call  sin. 

The  desire  for  eternal  life  is  a  very  old  hu- 
man preference.  It  must  be  also  admitted  to 
be  a  very  strong  one.  It  is  impossible  here 
to  do  more  than  recall  the  existence  of  the 
immense  mass  of  scholarship  and  sentiment, 
faith  and  dogmatism,  wisdom  and  folly,  which 
have  been  wreaked  upon  the  sole  aspect  of 
the  subject  that  raises  the  question  whether 
belief  in  the  future  life  is  intuitive  in  the 
mind  of  man. 

This  paper  does  not  presume  to  enter  upon 
that  venerable  and  tremendous  discussion,  but 
would  suggest  its  huge  proportions  in  the  his- 
tory of  thought  as  significant  far  beyond  the 
reach  of  mere  argument.     However  we  come 


132       THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

by  the  wish  to  live  forever,  the  fact  seems  to 
be  that  most  of  us  have  it.  Whatever  were 
the  private  views  of  the  Cave-men,  or  even 
the  current  of  thought  in  the  Jewish  theocracy 
upon  this  point,  it  seems  to  be  true,  so  far  as 
the  evidential  testimony  is  in,  that  the  race 
has  desired,  if  not  expected,  continuance  after 
death. 

This  fact  alone  would  not  prove  that  we 
should  get  what  we  desire  ;  but  it  is  certainly 
not  a  good  reason  for  showing  why  we  should 
miss  it.  To  say  that  no  subject  whatever  has 
so  deeply  stimulated  the  human  mind  as  that 
of  a  life  to  come  is  not  to  overstate  the  case. 
The  agitations  of  love  and  the  consequences 
of  death  have  been  the  two  fundamental  ob- 
jects of  interest  in  this  world  ;  and  of  these 
twin  princes,  the  gentler  has  yielded  the  crown 
to  the  sterner  brother.  Where  is  the  lover 
whose  ardor  would  not  be  chilled  by  an  ap- 
parition or  an  earthquake  ? 

A  glance  at  the  literature  of  eschatology, 
as  represented  in  the  catalogues  of  even  our 
secular  and  popular  libraries,  astonishes  one 
who  looks  at  them  for  the  first  time.  A  cele- 
brated  publisher   once   said   that  to  put  the 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    133 

word  Heaven  into  the  title  of  a  book  was 
enough  to  insure  the  sale  of  it.  I  remember 
to  have  heard  one  of  the  most  philosophical  of 
men  —  the  least  impetuous  either  in  thought 
or  speech,  and  one  of  the  best  trained  in  in- 
tellect and  character  —  say  that  he  would  pre- 
fer any  life,  even  that  of  a  supposable  world 
of  woe,  to  annihilation.  A  man  who  has  ac- 
quired the  habit  of  living  is  loath  to  suspend  it. 
His  custom  has  become  his  appetite  ;  it  seems 
to  him  even  to  have  become  his  right. 

Christian  philosophy  has  a  certain  respect- 
able position  among  systems  of  thought.  As 
a  system,  it  has  somewhat  emphatic  bearings 
upon  the  idea  which  we  are  pursuing. 

It  is  the  great  point,  so  to  speak,  of  the 
Christian  religion,  that  it  conforms  vigorously 
to  the  vigorous  love  of  existence  in  the  ex- 
isting. It  meets  this  high  instinct  on  lofty 
ground  ;  it  treats  it  with  the  respect  due  any 
such  elemental  impulse ;  it  deals  not  with  the 
dream,  but  the  deed ;  it  offers  no  fantasy,  but 
a  promise  ;  it  plunges  us  in  no  reverie,  but 
holds  us  to  an  assurance  ;  and  mocks  us  not 
with  myths,  but  controls  us  with  facts. 


134      THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

"  God,"  it  has  been  well  said,  by  a  great 
metaphysician,  "  is  chiefly  of  interest  to  us  in 
so  far  as  he  is  the  condition  of  our  immortal- 
ity." Recognizing  this  truth.  Christian  phi- 
losophy squarely  offers  duration  of  life  to  the 
individual. 

Such  an  offer,  it  will  be  said,  has  been 
made  before.  True,  and  happily  true.  Were 
this  not  so,  had  the  race  existed  six  thousand 
years  —  or  sixty  —  more  or  less,  with  no  more 
hope  of  perpetuity  after  death  than  so  many 
kangaroos,  the  originality  of  Christianity  might 
have  been  her  practical  destruction,  and  that 
which  has  been  accepted  as  an  inspiration 
might  have  been  set  aside  as  an  "ism."  It 
may  be  claimed,  however,  that  the  Christian 
form  of  the  offer  of  immortality  is,  up  to  this 
time,  the  most  reasonable  which  has  been  pre- 
sented in  the  history  of  religion ;  that  it  is  the 
most  explicit,  the  most  logical,  the  most  fin- 
ished ;  in  short,  that  it  is  a  progression  from 
other  and  lower  phases  of  the  same  thing,  and 
in  so  far  entitled  to  the  respect  due  to  any 
highly  advanced  organization. 

Passing  the  outworn  superstitions,  whether 
of  savagery  or  civilization,   and   attending  to 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    135 

those  forms  of  belief  which  are  fashionable 
to-day,  it  will  not  be  disputed  that  Christian- 
ity is  the  only  one  which  advances  consistent 
hope  of  personal  immortality.  The  vagueness 
and  vagary  of  Buddhism  upon  this  doctrine 
are  too  well  known  to  need  explanation  here. 
The  "  Dream-religion  "  may,  or  may  not,  make 
you  a  man  or  a  cloud,  at  the  thither  side  of 
death ;  it  is  not  clear  whether  one  shall  be  an 
angel  or  an  atom.  Much  aesthetico-religious 
sensibility  which  luxuriates  over  the  "  Light  of 
Asia,"  would  be  cured  by  a  sound  acquaint- 
ance with  the  Suttas  or  Dhammapadas  in  a 
standard  translation.  "  Never,"  says  Max 
Miiller,  "  had  a  scheme  of  salvation  been  put 
forth  ...  so  independent  of,  so  even  antag- 
onistic to  the  belief  in  a  soul,  the  belief  in 
God,  and  the  hope  of  a  future  life." 

Shall  we  ask  Agnosticism  for  her  eternal 
hope  ?  Hollow  is  her  evasive  reply !  Such 
dreary  elusion  is  not  a  new  one,  at  best,  in  the 
history  of  belief.  "  When,"  says  Miiller  again, 
*'  after  many  centuries  of  thought,  a  pantheis- 
tic or  monotheistic  unity  has  been  evolved  out 
of  the  chaos  of  polytheism  .  .  .  there  has 
always  arisen,  at  last,  a  school  to  whom  theo- 


136      THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

logical  discussions  have  lost  their  interest,  and 
who  have  sought  for  a  new  solution  of  the 
questions  to  which  the  theologies  have  given 
inconsistent  answers,  in  a  new  system  in 
which  man  was  to  work  out  here  on  earth  his 
own  salvation."  Up  to  a  certain  point  Agnos- 
ticism has,  indeed,  pilfered  from  Christianity 
in  the  attempt  to  substitute  for  a  strong  and 
glorious  affirmation  a  weak  and  pitiful  ne- 
gation. So  intense  is  the  ]ove  of  life  in  the 
human  soul  that  even  this  negation  is  pathet- 
ically snatched.  He  who  has  no  longer  any 
hope  of  existence  beyond  the  incident  of  his 
own  death-bed  palliates  his  condition  by  prat- 
ing of  posterity  ;  or,  he  who  buries  the  beloved 
of  his  life,  standing  comfortless  at  the  grave's 
gap,  listens  to  feeble  talk  of  her  continuance 
in  the  future  of  the  race. 

The  Christian  religion,  in  offering  duration 
to  the  individual,  is,  as  we  have  said,  explicit 
and  logical ;  but  it  is  also  conditional.  It  is 
difficult  for  the  mind,  reared  among  the  fami- 
liar speech  with  which  most  of  us  dispose  of 
this  subject,  to  be  alertly  aware  of  the  fact 
that  immortality  is  nowhere  proved  to  be  a 
natural  right.     Yet  such   is  the  fact.     Like 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    137 

suffrage,  immortality  is  not  a  right,  but  a  pri- 
vilege. It  is  not  property,  but  a  gift.  This 
gift  is  offered  to  you  or  me  upon  conditions 
which  we  can  accept  or  deny  at  will.  The 
founder  of  our  religion  makes,  we  may  say 
that  he  constitutes,  the  conditions.  Everlast- 
ing life  is,  in  fact,  according  to  this  religion, 
bestowed  by  Jesus  Christ  upon  the  human 
soul.  The  consequence  of  declining  this  gift 
and  its  conditions  would  seem  to  be  logically, 
if  not  theologically,  wrapped  in  the  phrase, 
"  everlasting  death."  But  this  opens  debat- 
able gTound,  upon  which  our  paper  can  do  no 
more  than  glance. 

Theology  is  not  Christianity.  The  word 
and  the  creed  are  not  one  and  the  same.  The 
premise  of  the  master  and  the  conclusion  of 
the  priest  may  diverge  through  pressure  of  a 
hundred  inevitable  causes. 

The  writer  is  no  theologian  and  is  not  writ- 
ing to  theologians,  and  is  loath  to  touch  upon 
a  point  which  laymen  must  treat  rather  by  in- 
stinct and  judgment  than  by  equipment.  Yet 
the  great  common  sense  and  heart  of  the  world 
will  have  their  way  with  the  great  common 
problems.     The  universal  must  abide  the  uni- 


138      THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

versal  test.  The  question  whether  any  por- 
tion, large  or  small,  of  the  human  race  is  to 
suffer  forever  is,  at  least,  one  which  it  would 
seem  to  be  in  poor  taste  to  treat  flippantly, 
and  poor  religion  to  treat  acrimoniously.  If 
there  be  any  question  above  all  others  in  which 
people  who  think  as  well  as  feel,  or  people 
who  feel  as  well  as  think,  should  grant  each 
other  large  and  solemn  charity,  this  is  that 
question. 

It  is  not  a  matter  to  be  frivolously  set  aside, 
either  by  theological  prejudice,  or  personal 
preference.  It  is  difficult  to  suppose  that  the 
eternal  future  of  the  mass  of  the  human  race 
depends  upon  the  culture  of  an  exegete,  or  the 
translation  of  a  Greek  word.  Whatever  may 
be  the  truth,  or  the  choice  between  the  chances 
of  the  truth,  such  a  choice  should  be  made  in 
a  spirit  above  the  reproach  of  controversial 
bitterness  or  pettiness,  and  "  on  the  height" 
of  a  sacred  gentleness  of  soul,  wherein  "lies 
repose." 

It  would  be  seen  by  an  exegetical  study  of 
the  subject  that  it  may  be  at  least  no  un- 
scriptural  or  unreasonable  form  of  Christian 
faith  which  offers  immortality  —  any  kind  of 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    139 

immortality  —  as  a  gift,  on  specified  condi- 
tions, to  the  individual.  To  this  extent,  there- 
fore, Christianity  may  be  called  in  support  of 
the  susrsrestion  to  which  we  find  ourselves  now 
clearly  directed  by  the  train  of  thought  that 
we  have  pursued  ;  and,  in  so  far,  those  who  are 
themselves  believers  in  the  value  of  the  Chris- 
tian faith,  and  tolerant  of  its  differing  inter- 
pretations of  the  Bible  text,  may  be  inclined 
to  follow  us.  For  those  who  are  not  such,  the 
argument  stands  or  falls  by  itself  ;  lacking, 
in  that  case,  a  certain  emphasis,  but  not,  we 
trust,  without  order. 

*'  He  that  belie veth  on  me,"  said  Jesus 
Christ,  "  hath  everlasting  life."  "  Immortal- 
ity," said  Emerson,  "  will  come  to  such  as  are 
fit  for  it.  He  who  would  be  a  great  soul  in 
the  future  must  be  a  great  soul  now."  Both 
the  religious  and  the  philosophical  aspects  of 
our  thought  have  their  force  ;  he  who  accepts 
either  has  something ;  he  who  holds  both  has 
much.  "  Blessed  be  the  day,"  cries  the  modern 
Buddhist,  "  when  I  shall  draw  the  veil  from 
the  face  of  my  beloved.  .  .  .  But  the  veil  on 
the  face  of  my  beloved  is  the  dust  of  this 
earthly  body."    "  There  is  a  spiritual  body," 


140     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR   IMMORTALITY, 

asserted  the  Christian  apostle.    "  I  am  the  res- 
urrection," said  his  Master. 

Now,  then,  it  will  be  remembered  that  we 
have  gone  over  certain  ground  in  this  paper, 
not  unfamiliar  in  itself,  but  holding,  as  the 
writer  hopes,  some  fresh  relation  to  contiguous 
territory.  We  have  traced  the  nature  and 
effects  of  personality  as  a  factor  in  power. 
We  have  noticed  that  the  tendency  of  indi- 
viduality is  to  vigor,  and  because  to  vigor, 
therefore  to  duration  of  life.  We  have  re- 
membered that  modern  science  has  given  us 
proof,  so  overwhelming  as  to  partake  of  the 
nature  of  revelation,  of  a  truth  so  familiar  that 
we  had  all  but  overlooked  it  —  the  truth  that 
man,  to  the  most  solemn  ends,  is  born  to  fight 
for  his  life.  We  have  recollected  that  the 
struggle  for  existence  is  decided  by  the  ratio 
of  individuality  to  the  odds ;  that  individual- 
ity may  be  subtle  or  strong ;  that  victory 
may  be  real  or  apparent ;  that  individuality  is 
likely  to  become,  with  the  progress  of  civiliza- 
tion, a  more  complex  fact,  in  which  the  rela- 
tion between  the  seen  and  the  unseen  may 
change  its  present  proportions.  We  have 
called  to  mind,  also,   that  the  love  of  life  is 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    141 

one  of  the  elements  of  life,  and  that  death 
sets  in  with  the  passion,  whether  real  or  ap- 
parent, for  death.  We  have  remembered  that 
the  desire  for  eternal,  and  therefore  unseen, 
life  is  an  important  human  impulse ;  and  we 
have  alluded  to  the  contributions  of  Christian 
philosophy  toward  the  love  of  eternal  life  es- 
pecially as  framed  in  the  theory  of  conditional 
immortality.  We  have  further  suggested  that 
the  Christian  offer  of  immortality  is  a  progres- 
sion from  lower  phases  of  the  same  thing,  and 
entitled  to  the  respect  due  to  any  highly  ad- 
vanced organization. 

Does  it  not  remain  to  be  said  that  strength 
of  individuality  is  probably  proportional  to  the 
strife  for  eternal  existence  ?  Tremendous  is 
the  truth,  if  this  be  true.  A  man  may  be  neg- 
ligent of  his  own  noblest  nature  if  he  deem 
himself  the  victim  of  a  blind  chance,  or  a  re- 
lentless tyrant,  or  even  an  arbitrary  governor. 
He  must  start,  if  he  be  a  man,  to  a  view  of 
life  and  time  which  puts  him  on  his  mettle 
before  both.  The  appeal  to  self-respect,  in 
such  a  view,  is  as  powerful  as  self-respect  can 
bear.     Suppose  that  this  view  be  true.     Sup- 


142         THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

pose  that  the  struggle  for  existence  which  be- 
gins with  the  Protozoa,  or  the  Promamnialia, 
and  advances^  to  Aristotle  or  Darwin,  has 
become  nothing  more  nor  less  than  a  struggle 
for  immortality. 

Suppose  that  the  challenge  is  thus  broadly 
thrown  down  to  you,  or  me,  or  Newton,  or  the 
Jukes  family.  Live  or  die  !  It  is  your  own 
affair.  You  have  the  conditions  and  the 
chances.  Accept  or  decline.  No  gods,  pagan 
or  Christian,  shall  interfere  to  compel  you. 
Your  personality  has  sacred  and  awful  rights. 
You  are  caught  in  the  machinery  of  inextri- 
cable law.  Love  is  a  part  of  that  law ;  but 
both  love  and  law  must  take  the  material  that 
you  give  them.  Of  what  stuff  are  you  made  ? 
Abide  the  test.  It  is  ours  to  ask.  Are  you 
a  man  or  a  molecule?  Are  you  a  soul  or 
a  cell  ?  It  is  yours  to  decide.  Give  us  the 
proof. 

Truth  has  endless  corridors  by  which  to  ap- 
proach conviction,  and  one  can  see  in  such  a 

^  We  say  advances.  We  cannot  say  ends ;  for  we  have 
no  evolutionist  yet  returned  from  the  silence  of  apparent 
end  to  classify  whatever  possible  superior  form  of  beings 
may  exist  beyond  reach  of  our  microscope  or  telescope. 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.     143 

view  as  this,  a  marked  appeal  to  certain  types 
of  nature  which  seem  to  be  left  out  of  the 
usual  religious  argument.  It  is  perhaps  true 
that  many  a  person  objects  to  troubling  him- 
self with  immortality,  either  as  an  advantage 
or  a  disadvantage,  when  his  attention  is  con- 
centrated exclusively  upon  the  fact  that  eter- 
nal life  involves  definite  moi-al  conditions. 
That  it  should  imply,  also,  certain  conditions 
of  a  very  different  sort  is  quite  another  mat- 
ter; that  it  should  touch  the  intellect,  the 
force,  the  good  sense,  or  even  the  simple 
pluck  of  a  man  —  this  is  to  be  regarded.  We 
may  be  conquered  through  our  pride,  when  we 
cannot  be  won  through  our  conscience.  He 
who  does  not  find  it  any  longer  exciting  to  be 
told  that  he  is  not  good  enough  to  live  for- 
ever, will  scarcely  hear  without  interest  that 
he  is  not  strong  enough.  Many  of  us  would 
rather  be  called  bad  than  weak.  It  is  an  ar- 
rest to  the  thoughtf  ulness  of  any  man  but  an  in- 
ferior one  to  show  him  reason  why  he  may  be 
in  the  way  of  losing  an  obvious  gain  through 
inferiority.  Precisely  that,  such  a  view  of 
the  struggle  for  immortality  as  we  have  sug- 
gested would  undertake  to  show. 


144     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

In  proportion  to  the  force  and  vigor  of  the 
individual  is  the  love  of  life,  present  and  to 
come.  Eternal  life  should  be  at  least  as 
much  a  test  of  power  as  temporal  life.  Indi- 
viduality means  the  acquisition  of  life;  one 
rates  one's  self  accordingly.  To  love  life,  to 
strike  out  for  it,  to  overcome  it,  to  insist  on  it, 
is  strength.  To  fail  of  it  is  weakness.  We 
do  not  stay  just  now  to  remind  you  that  a 
pure  heart,  forgiven  sin,  consecrated  deeds,  are 
the  conditions  of  immortality,  and  that  a  given 
being  may  miss  of  it  by  missing  these  ;  we  say 
only  that  he  misses  it  because  there  is  not 
enough  of  him,  or  because  he  does  not  make 
enough  of  himself  to  get  it.  He  of  the  centri- 
fugal nature,  whose  mind  works  from  v/ithin 
outward,  moving  in  sj)irals  about  moral  prob- 
lems; who  finds  it  easy  to  doubt  accepted 
truths  because  of  what  strikes  him  repeatedly, 
at  the  same  point,  as  the  excess  of  his  own 
originality  —  he  will  be  reluctant  to  believe 
that  he  may  be  declining  immortality  simply 
because  he  is  not  man  enough  to  have  it.  Yet, 
metaphysically  as  physically,  the  argument 
holds.  He  is  thrust  upon  a  battle-field,  enor- 
mous and  deadly.     As  for  the  bread   of  the 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    145 

body,  so  for  the  bread  of  tbe  soul,  he  fights. 
As  for  life,  love,  success,  fame,  and  the  trifles 
of  time,  so  for  eternal  hope,  and  its  majes- 
tic possibilities,  he  shall  be  challenged.  Is  he 
a  man  ?  Let  him  show  his  colors.  Is  he  a  sol- 
dier ?  Ask  for  his  scars.  Does  he  hold  his 
ground  ?  Does  he  shirk,  desert,  surrender,  or 
fly  ?  Let  him  look  to  it.  By  so  much  as  he 
is  a  force,  he  will  keep  the  field. 

Retreat  from  the  great  effort  of  being  to 
secure  its  own  continuity,  may  have  whatever 
moral  aspects  ;  it  is  at  least  true  that  to  re- 
treat is  to  be  beaten  ;  that  to  be  beaten  is  to 
be  weak ;  and  that  such  weakness  may  be  the 
last  fate  which  has  presented  itself  as  probable 
to  the  type  of  soul  most  likely  to  succumb. 

For,  let  us  notice,  the  struggle  for  immor- 
tality is  not  a  simple  and  obvious  affair.  The 
armor  and  sabre,  the  powder  and  shot,  are  not, 
in  fact,  altogether  the  urgent  and  the  tangi- 
ble. The  blood  and  dust  and  mortal  cries 
may  not  be  the  apparent,  or  the  audible  ;  and 
he  who  is  hurled  down  ''  unable  or  to  move  or 
die,"  may  give  no  sign.  As  with  the  silent 
defeats  of  life,  so  with  its  dumb  victories.  He 
needs  the  higher  education  in  the  deaf-mute 


146      THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

language  o£  the  soul,  who  would  apply  his  tac- 
tics to  the  estimate ;  and  his  is  the  best  mar- 
tial culture  of  the  spirit  which  is  most  con- 
scious of  its  own  unfitness  to  specialize  that  es- 
timate. But  so  much  as  this  it  is  easy  to  see : 
as  civilization  refines^  the  intricacy  and  deli- 
cacy of  the  struggle  for  existence  must  refine 
with  it ;  and,  that  this  is  likely  to  be  true  of 
eternal  as  well  as  of  temporal  existence,  the 
course  of  our  argument  has  already  suggested, 
and  now  finds  itself  obliged  to  emphasize. 

The  struggle  for  eternal  life  is  no  light 
matter,  like  ladies'  calisthenics,  which  exercise 
only  certain  muscles.  The  athletics  of  the 
soul  are  virile  ;  they  are  impartial ;  they  are 
not  ornamental  and  fanciful.  Development  is 
demanded  for  use,  not  for  exhibit.  Tissue  and 
sinew  and  blood  and  bone  respond  ;  now  this, 
now  the  other,  urgency  on  one,  relief  of  the 
other,  pressure  here,  repose  there,  strain  to-day, 
rest  to-morrow,  this  faculty  aroused,  the  other 
lulled,  this  feat  to  be  performed,  that  danger 
scorned,  a  boy's  medal  won  to-day,  and  a 
man's  life  saved  next  year ;  thus  the  soul,  in 
the  hands  of  the  Silent  Trainer,  grows  in 
frame  and  fi.bre.      Will  we   play  battle-door 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.      147 

and  shuttle-cock  for  our  prizes  ?  Or  close  and 
wrestle  for  them  ? 

We  have  spoken  of  the  evolution  of  a 
higher  than  the  physical,  from  the  physical 
science  which  holds  so  disproportionate,  but 
none  the  less  useful,  an  influence  over  the 
thought  of  the  instructed  world  to-day.  "  We 
are  spirits,"  said  one  of  the  coolest  of  scien- 
tific men,  a  century  ago.  "  We  are  spirits. 
That  bodies  should  be  lent  to  us  while  they 
can  afford  us  pleasure,  assist  us  in  acquiring 
knowledge,  or  in  doing  good  to  our  fellow- 
creatures,  is  a  kind  and  benevolent  act  of 
God."  The  practical  Franklin  showed  his 
keen  good  sense  in  this  matter-of-fact  way 
of  expressing  a  truth  which  is  too  often  ap- 
proached upon  the  mystical  and  most  difficult 
side.  We  are,  indeed,  spirit ;  and  we  may, 
without  hesitation,  dispute  so  much  as  this 
with  him  who  begins  by  saying  that  we  are 
matter.  It  cannot  be  denied  that  we  have  at 
least  as  good  a  right  to  start  with  the  one  asser- 
tion, as  he  with  the  other.  '•'•  I  should  never," 
says  Elizabeth  Peabody,  "  teach  a  child,  '  You 
have  a  soul,'  but,  '  You  have  a  body.'  " 

Let  us  then  call  the  struggle  for  immortal- 


148    THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

ity  an  advanced  form  of  the  lower  encounter. 
It  is  a  struggle  historic  and  dramatic,  as  it  is 
involved  and  unconcluded.  A  man  cannot 
fight  this  fight  with  part  of  his  nature.  It 
takes  the  whole  of  him.  A  stout  fist  avails 
him  little  without  sound  thought.  He  cannot 
gain  the  day  by  his  intellect,  lest  he  lose  it  on 
the  side  of  his  heart.  Neither  does  emotion 
win  without  reflection,  and  hysteria  is  a  poor 
weapon  to  substitute  for  common  sense.  We 
find  at  once,  that  we  have  approached  herein 
a  problem  complex  to  the  edge  of  mystery. 
For,  there  enters  into  this  struggle  a  strange 
law  of  spiritual  selection,  differing  from  that 
governing  the  conflicts  in  the  lower  phases  of 
organization,  as  fineness  differs  from  momen- 
tum, the  telephone  from  a  war-cry,  or  the 
Flower  Charity  from  the  Inquisition. 

The  conditions  of  immortality  wholly  refuse 
to  rest  upon  the  piers  which  hold  the  condi- 
tions of  conquest  in  the  life  of  time.  Brute 
force  ceases  now  to  keep  its  relative  value  in 
this  larger  contest.  There  is  what  may  be 
called  a  brute  force  of  the  mind,  of  which  this 
is  equally  and  terribly  true.  Sheer  intellect 
has  no  greater  chance  at  everlasting  life  than 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.     149 

sheer  muscle.  Immortality  is  not  promised  by 
their  Creator,  to  great  men.  Mere  mind  holds 
no  passport  to  eternity.  There  is  no  limited 
express  to  Paradise  for  able  people.  Goethe, 
for  being  Goethe,  is  none  the  more  likely  to 
last  forever.  Frederica,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 
stands  quite  as  good,  or  a  better  chance. 

The  law  of  spiritual  selection  would  seem 
to  be  at  once  severe  and  delicate.  The  obscur- 
est mother,  transmitting  a  pure  heart  to  her 
boys,  never  having  heard  of  protoplasm,  and 
knowing  no  philosophy  beyond  her  prayers, 
may  enter  into  this  higher  contention  with  an 
equipment  which  the  discoverer  of  the  missing 
link  might  envy.  It  is  quite  conceivable  that 
the  soul  of  a  felon  might  survive  the  soul  of  a 
prince  or  a  priest.  The  tests  of  the  world  fail. 
Fine  causes,  and  finer  sequences,  enter  the 
list.  AVho  are  we  that  we  should  win?  What 
is  our  standard  of  success  ?  What  the  temper 
of  our  weapons?  We  buy  and  sell,  we  woo 
and  wed,  we  gain  us  a  friend,  or  fame;  and 
the  stranger  without  our  gates,  or  the  servant 
under  our  feet,  may  be  fighting  for  a  soul's 
life  where  we  are  fooling  with  it,  and  may, 
therefore,  be  better  worth  life,  and  so  the  more 


150     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

likely  to  live.  For  law  is  but  law,  and  spirit- 
ual law  loses  nothing  of  its  grip  for  its  gain  in 
quality,  and  holds  us  none  the  less  robustly  be- 
cause of  a  touch  so  velvet. 

Suppose  that  this  view  be  the  true  one. 
Suppose  that  he  who  wishes  to  live  indefi- 
nitely, or  always,  is  the  subject  of  such  law. 
Suppose  that  the  complete  and  complex  nature 
—  physical,  mental,  moral,  spiritual  —  be- 
comes, by  an  ascending  scale  of  strain,  the  sol- 
dier in  such  a  strife.  Suppose  that  the  ulti- 
mate atom  of  the  permanent  individual  may 
prove  to  be  the  vigor  or  the  honor  of  his  con- 
science. Suppose  that  from  this,  as,  in  the 
physical  case,  from  the  cell  of  the  embryo,  the 
life  of  what  we  call  a  soul  evolves.  Suppose 
that  the  development  of  this  spiritual  cell-life 
is,  to  the  requisite  extent,  under  the  control  of 
the  human  will.  Suppose  that  this  develop- 
ment is  governed  by  a  just,  or  even  a  generous 
relativity  to  the  environment  which  spiritual 
science  is  not  yet  advanced  enough  to  formu- 
late. Suppose  that  the  grandest  work  per- 
formed by  the  physical  science  of  our  times 
should  prove  to  be  its  contribution  to  such  a 
spiritual  science,  and  that  such  a  spiritual  sci- 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    151 

ence  is  yet  to  become  a  matter  of  more  or- 
derly, more  manly,  and  more  nearly  universal 
acceptance,  than  any  form  of  religious  belief 
detached  from  natural  research  is  now  likely  to 
command.  Suppose  that  the  revelation  of  fact 
and  the  revelation  of  faith  are  met  together. 
Suppose  that  the  progress  of  fact  does  not  pro- 
ceed, as  Spencer  would  have  it,  from  evolution 
to  dissolution,  but  from  evolution  through  ap- 
parent dissolution  to  real  evolution ;  and  that 
the  splendid  blossom  of  the  greatest  discovery 
of  modern  thought  has  as  yet  but  begun  to 
bud. 

We  ask  for  this  aloe,  precious  and  perfect, 
in  the  name  of  reason,  that  it  may  be  rooted 
in  the  hope  of  everlasting  life,  for  which  it  is 
our  honorable  service  to  contend. 

We  ask  for  this  hope  in  the  name  of  sci- 
ence, which  has  rendered  unto  nature  the 
things  that  are  nature's,  but  unwittingly  unto 
God  the  things  that  are  God's.  The  glory  of 
the  law  moves  on.  The  his/her  science  has  its 
prophets.  Its  scholars  are  to  come.  In  an 
age  when  we  are  called  upon  to  study  "  the 
sagacity  and  morality  of  plants,"  we  may  be 
justified  in   demanding  an  adaptation  of  sci- 


152     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

entific  method  to  the  fine  fibres  and  hidden 
seed  of  the  human  spirit. 

If  these  things  be  so,  the  mind  is  dazzled 
by  the  vision  of  those  future  types  of  which 
both  faith  and  science  promise  us  so  much. 
To  what  refinement  and  enforcement  the  high 
organizations  of  this  present  life  may  rise,  he 
only  can  intelligently  imagine  who  has  the 
student's  lens  and  the  believer's  eye.  What 
man  may  be  a  century  or  two  hence,  what  the 
average  of  nature  with  which  he  must  contend, 
what  the  ideal  by  which  he  shall  achieve  su- 
periority, what,  in  short,  the  intensification  of 
his  entire  form  of  strife  with  his  conditions, 
it  is  only  possible  for  us  to  guess  by  some 
conception  of  the  fact  of  spiritual  nature,  and 
the  nature  of  a  science  based  upon  that  fact. 
What  the  select  man,  survivor  of  this  or  the 
future  environment,  may  become  in  the  life 
beyond,  to  what  unimagined  evolution  he  may 
be  liable,  through  what  supreme  equilibration 
of  power  incapable  of  dissolution  the  rhythm 
of  spiritual  motion  shall  sweep  him,  who  can 
say? 

Once  again.  We  have  spoken  of  the  love 
of  life  as  one  of  the  constituent  elements  of 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    153 

life ;  and,  in  this  connection,  we  have  ob- 
served that  death  sets  in  with  the  passion  for 
death.  It  is  reasonable  to  suggest  that  in  the 
higher,  as  in  the  lower  life,  the  analogy  holds. 
In  the  strife  for  eternal  existence,  it  may  be 
true  that  the  amount  of  contending  desire  rep- 
resents the  amount  of  contending  power  ;  that 
the  love  of  eternal  life,  itself,  bespeaks,  to  an 
extent,  the  capacity  for  it ;  that  the  instincts 
or  the  impulses  of  belief  are  not  without  their 
significance,  other  things  being  equal,  as  sal- 
vable  agencies  ;  in  short,  that  the  longing  to 
live  forever  not  only  carries  with  it  the  power 
to  conquer  the  materials  of  duration,  but  in- 
dicates in  a  measure  the  force  of  the  life-prin- 
ciple in  the  soul.  A  man  may  live  forever 
because  he  loves  his  eternal  life,  and  he  loves 
his  eternal  life  because  he  is  to  live  forever. 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  death  sets  in  with  the 
passion  for  death,  may  there  be  a  significance 
invisible  and  invincible  as  a  zymotic  disease, 
in  the  reluctance  to  conquer  immortality  which 
is  sometimes  cultivated  either  as  a  conscious 
whim,  or  a  supposed  sign  of  mental  strength  ? 
Hume  speaks,  somewhere,  of  a  "  decline  of 
soul."    Side  by  side  with  wliat  may  be  almost 


154     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

called  devout  unbelievers,  we  find  men  whose 
skepticism  as  to  spiritual  facts  is  a  species  of 
new  game,  a  philosophical  lawn-tennis,  where- 
with to  pass  life's  midsummer ;  and  over  against 
these,  we  find  others  still,  by  whom  dispute 
with  supernaturalism  is  rated  as  a  synonym 
for  force  of  character,  and  cultivated  as  an 
egotism  rather  than  a  consecration.  May  there 
not  be  among  these  cases  of  spiritual  suicide  ? 
Has  he  perhaps  already  begun  to  die  in  whom 
the  tolerance  of  death  is  so  indulgently  re- 
garded ?  Is  his  life-principle  already  vitiated 
who  can  so  idly  court  results  which  a  sound 
and  sane  soul-vigor  should  abhor  ?  "  Earnest- 
ness is  the  path  of  life,"  says  the  Dhamma- 
pada,  "  Thoughtlessness  the  path  of  death. 
Those  who  are  in  earnest  do  not  die ;  those 
who  are  thoughtless  are  as  if  dead  already !  " 

Experts  will  tell  us  with  what  firmness,  yet 
with  what  tenderness,  the  suicidal  impulse  is 
treated  in  hospitals  for  the  insane ;  how  the 
unnatural  passion  for  death  is  discouraged  by 
exposing  its  unnaturalness,  or  by  fostering 
the  feeble  love  of  life,  if  that  be  possible ;  how 
gently  the  nature  is  aroused  against  itself; 
how   surgically   the    diseased    conditions   are 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    155 

handled,  and  how,  upon  the  chance  of  the  suf- 
ferer's recognizing  his  pathological  position, 
and  approaching  himself  as  his  own  patient, 
all  his  hope  of  cure  may  hang. 

It  is  by  no  means  impossible  that  the  sui- 
cidal nature  of  unbelief  in  a  life  to  come,  may 
yet  find  its  soul-physicians  in  some  psycholog- 
ical asylum  of  tlie  future,  wherein  these  dis- 
eases of  the  spirit  shall  be  treated  by  a  skill 
which  must  make  our  present  methods  of  deal- 
ing with  them  seem,  by  contrast,  like  the 
blood-letting  and  strait  -  jacket,  the  dungeons 
and  the  chains  of  the  Dark  Age. 

But  once  again  :  If  these  things  be  so,  the 
familiar  thought  (even,  as  w^e  have  already 
seen,  the  familiar  language)  of  the  lower  sci- 
ence has  been  the  subject  of  a  solemn  uncon- 
scious selection  in  the  service  of  that  higher 
science  of  the  soul  to  which  we  look. 

In  the  struggle  for  immortality,  the  position 
of  the  individual  holds  a  curiously  interesting 
attitude  toward  the  elevated  nature  of  his  en- 
vironment. What  is  the  insistence  of  individ- 
uality but  the  persistence  of  force  ?  Or  what  its 
victory  but  a  conservation  of  energy  ?  What 
close   economies    there    may   be   in   spiritual 


156     THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

agency,  or  what  Law  of  Variation  in  spirit- 
ual inheritance,  we  know  not.  What  is  the 
protoplasm  of  spirit  we  can  but  guess.  What 
supernatural  selection  may  be  at  work  upon 
us,  we  have  yet  to  learn. 

And  yet  again  :  Supposing  there  to  be  any 
value  in  these  thoughts,  they  go  toward  prov- 
ing the  doctrine  of  the  survival  of  the  fittest 
a  sublime  and  an  inspired  thing.  If  we  have 
been  thinking  in  the  right  direction,  that  is  a 
doctrine  which  substantiates  religious  belief 
only  less  than  religious  belief  substantiates  it. 

The  revelation  of  nature  and  the  revelation 
of  the  Word  confirm  each  other  as  respects 
this  stimulating  conception  of  the  human 
problem.  The  old  urgency  of  faith  and  the 
new  impetus  of  science  move  upon  the  same 
pulley. 

Life  is  a  proof  of  the  power  to  live.  Life 
is  a  proof  of  the  qualification  for  life.  We 
compete  and  strive,  we  yield  or  conquer,  we 
adjust  our  individuality  to  our  odds,  we  adjust 
our  moral  freedom  to  our  individuality,  we 
adjust  our  elemental  love  of  duration  to  our 
moral  freedom,  and  the  lawful  result  abides. 
The  spiritually  weakest  goes  to  the  wall.     The 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    157 

spiritually  strongest  conquers.  He  is  tlie  unfit 
who  is  beaten  to  death  on  the  spiritual  side  of 
his  nature.  He  is  the  fit  survivor  who  saves 
his  soul  alive. 

What  manner  of  man  may  he  be  who  shall 
be  found  capable  of  the  final  survival  ?  Honest 
perplexity  has  its  visions,  and  struggles  toward 
them  with  noble  discontent.  Believing  Chris- 
tianity points  to  her  Nazarene  and  clings  to 
the  feet  of  the  sweet  and  solemn  ideal  which 
he  has  carved  like  a  statue  in  the  world. 

Whether  we  have  fixed  our  eyes  upon  the 
marble  or  the  dream,  the  complicated  nature 
of  the  struggle  in  which  we  are  involved  re- 
mains at  least  the  one  fact  about  which  there 
can  be  no  dispute.  The  finer  we  are,  the  more 
threads  to  our  destinies.  The  stronger  we  are, 
the  more  strain  upon  our  fibre.  That  first 
flaw  of  conduct  which  weakens  our  resistant 
power  may  find  no  steel  fingers  like  those  in 
the  machinery  of  woolen-mills,  which  detect 
the  defective  threads  and  stop  the  weaving  on 
the  spot. 

Supernatural  selection  has  what  may  be 
called  an  artistic  task  in  dealing  with  human 
character.     The  materials  of  duration  may  be 


158      THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY. 

found  in  mere  morality,  or  a  martyr's  fate ; 
they  may  pause  at  veracity,  or  fly  to  aspira- 
tion ;  they  may  be  sought  in  common  human- 
ity, or  hide  in  exalted  consecration. 

Who  shall  say  how  the  chance  turns?  At 
least,  plainly,  since  law  is  justice,  not  against 
the  paupers  of  heredity  ;  not  against  the  poor 
devils  of  the  world  as  opposed  to  their  betters. 
Noblesse  oblige  in  the  aristocracy  of  nature  as 
in  that  of  accident,  and  the  highly-born  may 
run  the  highest  risks. 

The  man  of  many  excellent  qualities  who 
protected  himself  at  the  expense  of  a  woman 
—  the  woman  of  good  intentions  whose  petty 
exactions  defrauded  a  man  of  his  best  possibili- 
ties —  might  be  beating  the  first  retreat  in  the 
long  struggle  wherein  the  power  of  advance 
grows  feeble  faster  than  the  consciousness  of 
feebleness.  The  jocund  entrance  into  the  for- 
est of  worldliness,  wherein,  before  we  know  it, 
the  soul  has  lost  the  trail  —  the  thin  coating 
of  social  courage  which  we  take  for  moral 
armor,  when  it  may  be  only  a  species  of  me- 
tallic paint  —  the  rust  of  selfishness  wrought 
by  sorrow  or  disease,  and  worn  like  an  orna- 
ment by  our  unconscious  vanity  —  might  be 


THE  STRUGGLE  FOR  IMMORTALITY.    159 

the  sign  of  the  weakness  which  should  defeat 
us  in  tlie  ultimate  struggle  for  survival,  under 
some  tremendous  moral  emergency,  or  crushing 
spiritual  strain. 

Our  self-respect  arises  like  a  knight,  "  with- 
out fear  and  without  reproach,"  to  defend  such 
a  view  of  the  appeal  of  human  life  to  human 
strength.  Magnificent  and  terrible  that  chal- 
lenge ! 

Is  a  man  to  be  the  weak,  the  worsted,  the 
defective  of  nature  ?  Is  he  crippled,  maimed, 
unable  of  soul  ?  Shall  he  surrender  his  chance 
at  continuance  for  some  inefficiency  of  tem- 
perament, or  flabbiness  of  purpose,  or  lack  of 
moral  gentility  ?  Shall  he  yield  to  that  slight 
tendency  to  be  satisfied  with  an  undertone  in 
ideals,  which  may  be  the  first  step  toward 
spiritual  discord  that  must  resist  harmonizing 
unless  in  finer  hands  than  his  ? 

Shall  he  narcotize  the  nerve,  or  loll  away 
the  muscularity  of  a  soul  that  had  fitness  in 
its  power  and  survival  at  its  bid  ? 

All  that  he  hath,  will  he  not  give  for  his 
life? 


V. 

THE  CHRISTIANITY  -OF   CHRIST. 

The  special  ignorance  of  the  generally  edu- 
cated presents  a  tempting  subject  for  study  ; 
it  might  form  the  intellectual  fad  of  a  wearied 
scholar,  with  zest  to  himself  and  the  public. 
There  is  a  certain  action  of  the  mind,  so  swift 
and  so  easy  that  it  might  almost  be  called  the 
toboggan  tendency,  to  slide  plump  down  into 
each  recurrent  delusion  that  makes  a  coasting- 
ground  for  society  ;  to  pick  itself  up,  find  its 
bruises,  climb  up,  and  do  it  all  over  again  with 
undiminished  simplicity  and  ardor.  Nowhere 
is  this  curious  inaccuracy  of  civilized  intelli- 
gence more  evident  than  in  questions  dealing 
^ith  religious  interests.  We  are  used  to  it 
even  in  the  detail  of  narrative  literature. 
When  one  of  the  leading  authors  of  America, 
a  few  years  ago,  wrote  of  the  "  wardens  "  of 
an  orthodox  Congregational  church,  one  need 
not  care  the  less  for  his  novels,  but  one  might 


THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.         161 

remember  that  lie  would  have  found  it  diffi- 
cult to  make  an  equivalent  blunder  upon  any 
purely  secular  topic.  So  far  as  I  know,  only 
one  reader,  a  clergyman,  ever  observed  the 
slip.  A  brother  novelist,  of  the  same  school, 
antedated  the  typewriter  the  other  day,  in 
a  story,  and  half  the  critics  in  the  country 
barked. 

The  latest  illustration  of  intellectual  tobog- 
ganing lies  easily  in  the  history  of  the  Russian 
dreamer,  whose  peculiarities  have  become  the 
sesthetico-religious  play-ground  of  the  literary 
world.  Tolstoi  must  allow  himself  the  priv- 
ilege of  many  a  veiled  smile  at  the  species  of 
attention  with  which  he  has  been  honored.  He 
is  himself  of  far  too  sincere  and  strenuous  a 
nature  to  comprehend  the  intellectual  games 
for  which  he  has  furnished  the  open  field. 
Shortly  said,  what  is  it  that  we  have  in  the 
story  of  this  interesting  person  and  in  his  re- 
markable influence  upon  a  certain  phase  of 
thought  ?  There  is  given  to  us  a  highly-edu- 
cated man  with  a  consecrated  conscience ;  the 
world  has  known  such  before.  He  has  ex- 
pressed views  of  truth  protestant  to  a  velvet- 
and  -  sealskin   religion  ;   in  this  particular  he 


162         THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

does  not  stand  alone.  He  has  developed  the 
genius  of  consistency ;  in  this  respect  he  is 
remarkable,  but  not  original.  He  has  tried 
to  live  the  life  of  a  Christian  theorist ;  in  this 
regard  he  is  to  be  reverenced  ;  he  is  not 
unique. 

The  attempt  to  imitate  the  life  of  Christ  is 
a  very  old  experiment.  It  began  in  the  del- 
icate nature  of  that  preferred  disciple  whom 
we  are  told  in  literature  older  than  "  My  Re- 
ligion "  that  the  Founder  of  our  religion 
"  loved."  A  classic  which  critical  culture  has 
been  accustomed  to  regard  as  not  inferior  to 
"  Anna  Karenina,"  some  time  since  familiar- 
ized the  world  with  principles  which  it  might 
have  missed,  had  it  waited  until  such  date  as 
presented  Count  Leo  Tolstoi's  rising  genius  to 
the  approval  of  American  critics, 

Tolstoi  is  an  earnest,  intellectual  man.  He 
has  written  good  books.  He  has  lived  a  good 
life.  He  makes  it  his  daily  business  to  live  a 
better.  He  has  both  the  head  and  the  heart 
to  appreciate  the  supreme  value  of  the  per- 
sonality of  Jesus  Christ,  and  he  has  the  inde- 
pendence to  pursue  his  own  interpretation  of 
that  transcendent  life  in  his  own  way.     For 


THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF   CHRIST.         163 

this  he  is  to  be  admired  and  respected  —  to  be 
studied,  if  you  like.  He  is  the  latest  prom- 
inent specimen  of  a  clean  departure  from  the 
trite  in  faith. 

But  any  educated  Christian  knows  that  the 
history  of  his  belief  presents  examples  of 
courage  as  devout,  of  self-sacrifice  as  fine,  of 
consecration  as  stimulating,  of  life  as  Christ- 
like. We  are  not  sure  that  it  would  be  im- 
possible to  find  instances  of  interpretative 
vigor  in  the  application  of  Christianity  to 
affairs  as  worthy  the  attention  of  the  realistic 
school  of  fiction.  Even  in  flitting  from  one 
sentence  to  another,  the  mind  carries  flash- 
light pictures  of  dedicated  lives  dear  to  Chris- 
tian memory.  We  see  the  soul  of  Luther  dar- 
ing the  world  —  "  Here  I  stand.  I  cannot 
otherwise.  God  help  me.  Amen  "  ;  Frederick 
Robertson,  popular  preacher  of  a  fashionable 
church  in  which  the  undergraduates  of  Oxford 
stood  packed  to  hear  him,  walking  the  streets 
by  night,  a  sick,  a  dying  man,  to  save  the 
fallen  women  of  Brighton ;  Dorothea  Triidel, 
healing  the  sick  of  Switzerland  with  no  mor- 
terla  medlca  but  that  of  a  consecrated  life  and 
awful  prayer ;  Elizabeth  Frye,  "  visiting  "  her 


164         THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

Master  "in  prison,"  and  Christianizing  the 
penal  system  of  the  world.  We  recall  those 
select  spirits  who,  at  any  cost,  stood  pledged 
to  protect  the  fugitive  slave  of  our  own  coun- 
try, presenting  himself  with  the  historic  pass- 
word, "  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in." 
We  speak  below  our  breath  with  reverence 
the  name  of  Father  Damien,  that  Christian 
priest  who  elected  to  take  up  his  abode  upon 
the  leper- island  of  the  Sandwich  group,  and 
there,  a  leper,  died.  We  see  with  blinding 
eyes  obscure  homes  that  we  have  known,  in 
which  are  the  saintly  sick,  the  voluntary  poor, 
the  neighborhood  nurse  ;  men  and  women  who 
do  not  know  worldly  ambition  when  they  look 
at  it ;  who  have  consumed  life  in  an  unre- 
corded passion  of  self-sacrifice  that  shames  our 
parlors,  that  shames  our  libraries,  that  shames 
our  pillows,  that  shames  our  literature,  and 
that  shames  our  pulpits  "for  Christ's  sake. 
Amen." 

Now  this  Eussian  enthusiast,  who  flits  from 
a  shoemaker's  bench  to  the  manuscripts  of 
his  novels,  may  be  far  above  most  of  us  in 
his  theory  and  practice  of  personal  holiness  ; 
this  does  not  affect  the  circumstance  that  his 


THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.        165 

standard  has  been  equaled  or  excelled  by  bet- 
ter Christians  than  we  are,  and  that  the  kind 
of  religious  deference  which  he  has  excited 
upon  the  part  of  literary  criticism  is  in  fact 
the  result  of  imperfectly-trained  vision.  It  is 
really  nothing  more  than  deficient  education 
which  has  put  this  heavy  emphasis  upon  the 
Sclavic  idealist.  We  are  not  often  reminded, 
but  we  cannot  remember  too  often,  that  our 
critics,  as  a  class,  are  not  religious  men,  and 
that  facts  familiar  to  many  minds  of  other- 
wise less  general  culture  than  the  litterateur 
is  supposed  to  possess,  may  easily  be  found 
out  of  his  orbit.  At  the  death  of  M.  L^on 
Gozlan,  no  member  of  his  family  could  tell 
whether  he  had  professed  the  Jewish  or  the 
Christian  religion,  although  he  had  written 
twenty  volumes  and  fifteen  comedies,  and  had 
edited  ten  newspapers.  The  specific  ignorance 
of  the  irreligious  intellect  is  natural ;  it  is 
almost  inevitable.  Our  culture  follows  the 
line  of  our  sympathies.  A  mistake  now  and 
then  is  to  be  expected.  What  is  called  the 
faith  of  the  higher  life  has  not  failed  to  find 
disciples  in  intellectual  circles  which  have  wel- 
comed as  *'  some  new  thing  "  the  enthusiasm 


166         THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

older  than  Madame  Guyon,  as  old  as  the  first 
Oriental  dreamer  who  concentrated  his  being 
upon  the  mystic  OM,  or  projected  his  willing 
soul  toward  Nirvana.  There  is  something 
very  suggestive  in  the  tendency  of  a  certain 
class  of  educated  minds  to  find  religious  in- 
spiration anywhere  except  in  the  forms  ac- 
cepted by  the  mass  of  Christian  believers.  In 
our  day,  spiritualism  has  found  amazing  vic- 
tims —  not  of  the  unlearned  ;  theosophy,  in- 
credible adherents  —  not  of  the  ignorant.  It 
has  proved  more  interesting  that  Koot  Hoomi 
should  appear  in  mid-ocean  with  a  letter  from 
India,  than  that  Paul  should  be  caught  into 
the  third  heaven.  Many  a  mind  has  gone  rev- 
erently mad  over  Mozoomdar,  which  found  no 
spiritual  impetus  in  the  Gospel  of  John.  A 
man  in  New  York  capped  the  climax  by  sac- 
rificing an  ox  to  Jupiter  in  his  back-parlor. 

Now,  it  seems  to  us  that  the  Tolstoi  mania 
is,  in  part,  another  form  of  the  same  tendency. 
Canon  Farrar  has  so  well  pointed  out,  in  an 
earlier  number  of  the  "  Forum,"  the  antiquity 
of  the  Tolstoian  experiment,  that  nothing  re- 
mains to  be  said  by  way  of  historical  foot-note 
upon   that   point.     Our   Russian   noble   is   a 


THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF  CHRIST.         167 

noble  Russian,  but  lie  is  not  the  originator 
of  the  faith.  He  may  be  even  a  little  of  a 
"  crank "  in  certain  particulars,  though  that 
is  an  accusation  so  common  to  the  history  of 
an  audacious  soul  that  one  dare  not  make  it 
flippantly.  But  this  goes  for  nothing  when 
realism  turns  its  microscope  upon  him.  The 
amount  of  it  all  seems  to  be  that  Tolstoi  has 
simply,  for  the  time,  made  religion  fashion- 
able. He  has  given  belief  prestige.  One 
would  suppose  that  he  had  discovered  the 
Founder  of  the  Christian  religion.  He  has 
bestowed  eclat  upon  the  message  of  God  to 
the  world.  He  has  revived  an  ancient  and 
neglected  publication.  He  has  put  the  New 
Testament  upon  editorial  tables.  He  has  made 
the  Saviour  of  mankind  so  "  realistic "  that 
art  can  afford  to  recognize  him.  He  has,  in 
short,  introduced  Jesus  Christ  to  exclusive  lit- 
erary circles. 

Some  months  since,  snow  fell  in  Charleston, 
South  Carolina.  A  few  faint  flakes  trembled 
down  like  falling  stars.  They  were  said  to  be 
the  first  for  twenty  years.  Alert  young  eyes 
looked  at  them  for  the  first  time  in  their  lives. 
Men  ran  out  into  the  streets  and  cauaht  the 


168         THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

melting  wonder  on  their  coat-sleeves,  on  their 
hands  ;  they  called  to  each  other  and  exhibited 
the  marvel  excitedly.  Aged  shop-keej)ers  came 
out  of  their  doors  and  snatched  at  specimens. 
There  may  have  been  fifty  flakes.  The  beauti- 
ful rime  was  the  wonder  of  the  moment  and 
melted  with  it.  A  literary  view  of  Christ  is 
a  passing  play.  It  is  phenomenal  like  the 
snow-flake  of  the  South.  It  drops  into  grace- 
ful hands  outstretched  for  the  last  fine  fancy  ; 
it  is  overturned  in  them,  and  studied,  and  pret- 
tily discussed  —  and  melts  in  them  to  make 
room  for  the  next  highly-crystallized  wonder. 

When  we  come  to  the  heart  of  the  matter, 
it  is  not  "  Launcelot  nor  another "  that  is  in 
question.  It  occurs  to  us  in  the  course  of  time 
that  Tolstoi  is  not  the  Kedeemer  of  the  world 
and  Mr.  Howells  his  prophet.  Show  us  the 
Greek  scholar  who  takes  his  Plato  in  transla- 
tion, and  we  show  you  the  Christian  who  takes 
his  Christ  at  second-hand.  After  all,  it  is  the 
superb  directness  of  Tolstoi  which  has  given 
such  passing  importance  to  his  views.  Some- 
body in  the  world  usually  recognizes  an  honest 
man.  It  is  always  interesting  to  be  straight- 
forward.    The  Russian  has  gone  sharp  to  the 


THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.  169 

mark.  He  read  his  Christ  in  the  original. 
In  our  day  this  practice  is  out  of  date.  When 
we  have  done  as  much,  we  may  be  equipped 
so  far  as  to  become  counselors-at-law  of  the 
Christian  faith.  Until  we  have,  any  fanatic 
who  has,  may  be  our  superior  in  the  practical 
graces  of  Christianity.  It  is  possible  that  the 
Lord  would  not  now  require  a  wealthy  fol- 
lower to  make  shoes,  and  seclude  that  amount 
of  trade  from  the  shoemaker  ;  but  the  disci- 
ple who  does  it  "  in  his  name,"  is  by  simple 
virtue  of  the  beautiful  logic  of  self-denial  an 
attorney  for  the  truth  who  goes  far  to  win  the 
case.  A  man  may  swallow  the  Nicene  Creed, 
and  digest  the  Thirty-nine  Articles,  but  not 
be  fit  to  black  the  last  boot  made  by  the  ama- 
teur shoemaker  who  has  swept  the  "  chord  of 
self  in  music  out  of  sight,"  in  the  ardent 
struggle  to  discover  what  Jesus  Christ  really 
meant  by  the  world  and  what  it  is  the  world's 
duty  to  do  about  it.  Making  every  allowance 
for  the  proportion  of  delusion  or  alienated 
good  sense  in  Tolstoi,  he  is  probably  closer 
than  most  of  us  to  the  principles  of  Chris- 
tianity. His  sincerity,  his  simplicity  and 
unselfishness,  penetrated  by  his  commanding 


170  THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

intelligence,  have  done  spiritual  service  with 
which  his  renewal  of  an  ancient  interpretative 
experiment  was  in  useful  harmony.  His  is  a 
consecrated  intelligence.  The  world  never  fails 
to  respond  to  that. 

Meanwhile,  there  is  no  doubt  about  it,  we 
are  pitiably  muddled  about  the  whole  Chris- 
tian idea.  The  religion  of  Jesus  has  devas- 
tated itself  with  practical  blunders  enough  to 
have  destroyed  a  less  robust  faith  or  one  of 
lower  origin.  We  may  paraphrase  the  cele- 
brated cry  of  Madame  Roland :  "  Oh  Chris- 
tianity I  Christianity  !  How  many  crimes  are 
committed  in  thy  name  !  "  The  central  figure 
of  human  history,  the  Galilean  has  founded  a 
faith  upon  which  he  distinctly  urges  that  the 
survival  of  the  soul  depends.  Yet,  after  two 
thousand  years  of  Christian  culture,  our  practi- 
cal results  are  not  unlike  the  Russian  peasant's 
view  of  the  Trinity  —  "  The  Saviour,  Mother 
of  God,  and  St.  Nicholas."  Considered  as  the 
disciples  of  a  religion  representing  the  awful 
claim  of  Christianity,  we  are  surprisingly  dis- 
integrated by  those  vagaries  and  weaknesses 
which  defeat  unity  and  organization.  We  are 
corroded  by  worldliness  of  heart.     We  are  im- 


THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF  CHRIST.  171 

prisoned  in  narrowness  of  intellect.     We  are 
disgraced  by  a  defective  humanity. 

The  essential  principles  of  Jesus  Christ 
seem  to  be  reduced  to  three.  The  first  of 
these  is  the  imperious  demand  for  a  personal 
consecration  to  right,  so  select,  so  severe,  so 
lofty,  and  so  sustained  that  it  is  to  be  com- 
prehended only  through  achievement.  Far 
beyond  our  brightest  fact  we  see  it  shining  in 
a  dazzling  mist,  as  one  sees  the  outline  of  the 
Celestial  City  in  that  old  engraving  setting 
forth  the  course  of  Bunyan's  Pilgrim  —  the 
one  supreme  ideal  of  the  earth.  Who  was 
Christ  ?  A  carpenter  become  a  rabbi  —  what 
we  should  call  a  "  self  -  made  "  itinerant 
preacher.  What  has  he  done?  Guided  the 
conscience  and  created  the  hope  of  the  world. 
How  did  he  do  it  ?  By  personal  holiness  noth- 
ing less  than  awful.  To  study  this  highly- 
sensitized  nature  even  as  an  intellectual  ex- 
ercise, for  an  hour,  is  to  breathe  rarefied  air. 
We  descend  from  it,  panting,  as  one  does  from 
a  great  poem  or  a  mountain.  What  would  be 
the  effect  of  a  thorough  moral  assimilation  of 
this  delicate  atmosphere  ?   What  refinement  of 


172  THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF   CHRIST. 

the  sensibility !  What  nutrition  of  the  soul ! 
What  sacred  fire  to  the  brain !  What  spiritual 
courtliness  to  the  conduct ! 

What  do  Christian  believers  undertake  ? 
Simply  the  imitation  of  the  most  intense  life 
the  world  has  known.  An  acute  absorption 
in  the  process  would  seem  to  be  logically  nec- 
essary. Most  of  us  go  about  it  as  we  go  to  a 
matinSe  where  the  programme  is  too  familiar. 
What  does  the  Founder  of  our  religion  de- 
mand ?  Absolutely,  the  surrender  of  personal 
preference  to  his  theory  of  life.  Yet  the  last 
thing  which  we  seem  likely  to  do  is  to  agree 
upon  his  theory.  Whatever  else  it  is  not,  it 
is  at  least,  beyond  dispute,  a  theory  of  breath- 
less self-sacrifice.  One  of  the  greatest  Pagans 
of  our  day  has  said  :  "  What  I  look  to,  is  the 
time  when  the  impulse  to  help  our  fellows 
shall  be  as  immediate  and  as  irresistible  as 
that  which  I  feel  to  grasp  something  if  I  am 
falling."  In  such  a  conception  of  life,  call  it 
by  what  name  we  will,  "Jesus  of  Nazareth 
passeth  by."  The  Christian  doctrine  is  in 
many  cases  most  vividly  expressed  by  an  out- 
sider, perhaps  because  he  takes  a  fresher  view 
of  it.  A  sensible  religious  writer  has  put  it 
in  this  way :  — 


THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF  CHRIST.         173 

"  The  Christian  law  is  the  law  of  love.  Whoever 
puts  the  rules  of  art  above  the  law  of  love  is  a 
Pagan.  He  who  habitually  seeks  to  gratify  his 
own  tastes  rather  than  to  do  good  to  all  men  as  he 
has  opportunity,  is  not  a  Christian  but  a  Pagan." 

Now,  whatever  else  he  was  or  was  not,  and 
whatever  he  meant  or  did  not  mean,  eTesus 
Christ  was  essentially  an  unworldly  man.  The 
question  is  not.  Are  we  all  to  become  evangel- 
ists, and  pool  our  property,  and  allow  our- 
selves to  be  thrashed  by  bullies  ?  Shall  Beacon 
Street  adopt  the  table  manners  of  Caper- 
naum? Shall  the  talUh  of  Palestine  be  made 
the  fashion  in  the  New  England  climate  ? 
The  question  is.  What  would  the  Founder  of 
our  faith  do  in  our  situation  ?  Have  we  got  at 
the  sense  of  it  ?  Have  we  applied  Christian- 
ity? Have  we  made  a  science  of  the  divine 
art  whose  principles  he  impersonated  ?  Have 
we  the  genius  of  self-sacrifice  ?  Have  we  the 
passion  of  unworldliness  ? 

There  is  a  fruit-market  in  Boston  which  has 
existed  for  thirty  years  upon  the  whims  of  the 
rich.  Hamburg  grapes  at  ten  dollars  a  pound 
are  regularly  in  stock.  In  the  winter,  straw- 
berries and  asparagus  sell  easily  at  three  dol- 


174         THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF   CHRIST. 

lars  a  box  or  a  bunch.  When  the  first  Florida 
berries  come,  thirteen  in  a  cup,  at  four  dollars 
a  cup,  parties  are  supplied.  One  hundred  and 
twenty-five  dollars'  worth  of  fruit  to  a  single 
order  causes  the  dealer  no  surprise. 

A  Chinese  vase  of  sa7ig  de  hoevf  finds  a 
purchaser  comfortably  at  five  thousand  dol- 
lars. The  famous  peach-blow  vase  was  sold 
for  fourteen  thousand.  A  mantelpiece  costing 
five  thousand  dollars  is  no  startling  feature 
in  our  homes.  The  catalogue  price  of  Ivan- 
Romanoff,  the  Siberian  wolf-hound,  in  the  last 
New  York  dog-show,  was  ten  thousand  dol- 
lars. A  horse  sold  the  other  day  for  fifty 
thousand,  and  a  distinguished  philanthropist 
pronounced  him  "  cheap  at  that."  There  is 
a  single  stone  slab  valued  at  forty  thousand 
dollars,  laid  in  front  of  a  well-known  private 
dwelling  in  New  York.  It  is  no  uncommon 
thing  to  give  fifty  thousand  dollars  for  a  rac- 
ing-yacht ;  the  average  cost  of  repairs  or  im- 
provements on  such  a  boat,  while  in  dock  be- 
tween regattas,  would  maintain  an  economical 
family  for  a  year.  One  thousand  dollars  a 
week  for  the  support  of  a  cruising-boat  is  a 
familiar  figure.     Twenty  thousand  dollars  for 


THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.         175 

a  woman's  dress  is  not  an  unknown  price. 
The  jewelry  of  our  ladies  has  reached  such 
value  that  they  dare  not  wear  their  gems ; 
such  pricelessness  is  sewn  into  invisible  seams 
that  female  fashion  on  a  summer  tour  is  a 
temptation  to  a  train  wrecker.  It  is  a  well- 
known  fact  that  many  families  have  aban- 
doned the  use  of  their  silver,  which  finds  a 
lodging  in  a  safe  deposit  vault,  while  the  din- 
ner-table is  decorated,  and  the  burglar  defied, 
with  plated  ware.  It  is  perfectly  understood 
that  paste  rests  upon  fair  bosoms,  while  the 
diamond  glitters  at  the  banker's.  Some  years 
since  it  was  found  that  the  expenditure  for 
the  maintenance  of  the  royal  stables  exceeded 
the  entire  sum  set  apart  for  public  education 
in  Great  Britain.  The  Bishop  of  Manchester 
once  read  to  his  congregation  the  following 
passage,  saying  that  he  had  received  it  from 
a  young  lady  who  wished  to  know  what  time 
there  was  in  her  life  for  Christian  work  :  — 

*'  We  breakfast  about  ten.  Breakfast  occupies 
the  best  part  of  an  hour,  during  which  we  read  our 
letters  and  pick  up  the  latest  news  in  the  papers. 
After  that  we  have  to  go  and  answer  our  letters, 
and  my  mother  expects  me  to  write  her  notes  of 


176  THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

invitation  or  to  reply  to  such.  Then  I  have  to  go 
into  the  conservatory  and  feed  the  canaries  and 
parrots,  and  cat  off  the  dead  leaves  and  faded 
flowers  from  the  plants.  Then  it  is  time  to  dress 
for  lunch,  and  at  two  o'clock  we  lunch.  At  three 
my  mother  likes  me  to  go  with  her  when  she  makes 
her  calls,  and  we  then  come  home  to  a  five-o'clock 
tea,  when  some  friends  drop  in.  After  that  we  get 
ready  to  take  our  drive  in  the  park,  and  then  we  go 
home  to  dinner  ;  and  after  dinner  we  go  to  the 
theatre  or  the  opera ;  and  then  when  we  get  home 
I  am  so  dreadfully  tired  that  I  don't  know  what 
to  do." 

"  It 's  not  the  rents  I  look  to,"  said  the 
undertaker-landlord  of  a  wretched  tenement 
block  in  London  to  Octavia  Hill ;  "  it 's  the 
deaths  I  get  out  of  the  houses."  Some  years 
ago  fashionable  New  York  did  penance  by  a 
spurt  of  charity  in  the  then  famous  case  of 
James  Howard,  an  industrious,  sober,  honest 
American,  who  threw  a  stone  into  a  plumber's 
window,  and  stole  a  few  brass  faucets  to  buy 
bread  for  children  who  were  starving,  and  for 
a  wife  dying  of  consumption.  For  a  few 
days  the  unsavory  street  where  he  lived  glit- 
tered with  liveried  carriages,  whose  occupants 


THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF  CHRIST.         177 

amused  themselves  by  playing  My  Lady  Boun- 
tiful to  that  astounded  family,  and  then  rolled 
away  to  the  next  new  scene  in  the  private 
theatricals  of  gay  life. 

In  a  New  England  town  the  other  day,  a 
newsboy,  hardly  higher  than  the  platform,  was 
run  over  by  a  horse  -  car  and  fatally  hurt. 
What  did  this  self-supporting  baby  of  six 
years,  when  writhing  in  the  last  agonies  of  a 
terrible  death  ?  He  called  piteously  for  his 
mother.  To  shriek  upon  her  breast  ?  That  she 
might  clasp  him  while  the  surgeon  worked  ? 
To  give  her  his  day's  earnings.  "  I  've  saved 
'em  mother,"  he  cried.  "  I  've  saved  'em  all. 
Here  they  are."  When  his  little  clenched, 
dirty  hand  fell  rigid,  it  was  found  to  contain 
four  cents. 

The  city  of  Detroit  may  yet  remember  the 
case  of  "  Gertie,"  which  touched  the  press  of 
the  country  at  the  time.  A  passer  through 
Clinton  Street  one  day  observed  a  little  Irish 
boy  hiding  in  a  door-way  and  crying.  A  sym- 
pathetic inquiry  brought  to  light  one  of  the 
most  exquisite  stories  ever  recorded  of  the  sick 
poor.  In  a  wretched  cellar  a  little  girl  of  ten 
lay  very  ill.     The  window-panes  were  broken 


178         THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

(it  was  March,  by   the   way)   and  variously 
stuffed.     For  one  pane  the  supply  of  tenement 
upholstery  had  given  out.     The  wind  and  the 
boys  looked  in  easily.     Just  within  range  of 
curious  eyes  the  cot   of   the   sick   child   was 
stretched.     The  gamins  of  Clinton  Street  dis- 
covered her  plight.     One  little  fellow  dropped 
an  orange  through  the  broken  glass ;  a  plain- 
tive voice  thanked  the  unseen  giver  gratefully. 
This   touching   mercy  became  the  fashion  in 
that  poor  neighborhood.     Every  day  saw  the 
cubs  of  the  street  cuddling  like  cossets  outside 
that  window.     Wisps  of  evergreen  swept  out 
of  florists*  doors,  broken  flowers  thrown  away, 
offerings  of  fruit  with  the  decayed  part  cut 
out  —  every  delicacy  for  the  sick  that  the  re- 
sources of  Clinton    Street  admitted  of,  went 
through  that  broken  pane.     One  little  fellow 
begged  a  bunch  of  frozen  Malaga  grapes  from 
a  dealer,  to  whom  he  offered  his  ragged  cap 
in  payment.     One  day  the   boys  said,  "Our 
Gertie  is  dead,"  and  the  Christian  street-boys 
became  the  mourners  behind  the  hearse  of  the 
starved  and  frozen  child. 

Now,  can  any  of  us  dare  to  say  that  a  state 
of  civilization  in  which   such  things  are  not 


THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF   CHRIST.         179 

only  possible,  but  in  which  such  extremes  of 
human  ease  and  misery  are  tolerated  as  the 
necessary  conditions  of  society,  represents  the 
Christianity  of  Christ  ?    Says  Isaac  Taylor :  — 

"  To  insure  its  large  purpose  of  good  -  will  to 
man,  the  law  of  Christ  spreads  out  its  claims  very 
far  beyond  the  circle  of  mere  pity  or  natural  kind- 
ness, and  in  absolute  and  peremptory  terms  de- 
mands for  the  use  of  the  poor,  the  ignorant,  the 
wretched  —  and  demands  from  every  one  who 
names  the  name  of  Christ  —  the  whole  residue  of 
talents,  wealth,  time  that  may  remain  after  primary 
claims  have  been  satisfied." 

I  do  not  forget  that  we  are  thought  to  be 
the  most  charitable  people  on  the  face  of  the 
earth.  I  do  not  forget  the  vast  machinery  of 
our  public  relief  and  the  reputable  organiza- 
tion of  our  church  benevolence,  nor  the  dew 
of  our  private  mercies ;  but,  taking  us  at  our 
highest,  and  our  attempts  to  live  the  un- 
worldly life  at  their  strongest,  and  the  entire 
pitiful  result  at  its  best,  I  wonder  that  the 
Lord  of  the  Christian  religion  does  not  whip 
us  out  of  our  bric-a-hrac  lives,  and  the  whole 
temple  of  humanity  that  we  have  degraded, 
with  the  fine  lash  of  his  holy  scorn. 


180         THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF   CHRIST. 

Next  to  the  personal  consecration  of  Christ, 
we  come  upon  the  fundamental  principle  of 
his  superb  liberality.  It  would  be  incredible, 
if  it  were  not  so  familiar  a  fact  as  to  give  a 
trite  thought,  that  the  followers  of  this  gen- 
erous-hearted Leader  should  have  squarely- 
turned  their  backs  upon  his  precept  and  per- 
formance in  this  regard.  Bigotry  may  be 
called  the  ecclesiastical  vice,  as  worldliness  is 
the  personal  one  of  the  Christian  cultus.  Shel- 
ley and  Leigh  Hunt,  talking  together  once, 
in  their  light,  literary  way,  made  this  mem- 
orable concession  to  Christianity  :  "  What 
might  not  this  religion  do,  if  it  relied  on  char- 
ity, not  on  creed  ?  "  The  worst  of  it  is,  that 
the  progress  of  time,  which,  after  all,  does 
something  for  most  of  us  in  most  respects, 
does  not  seem  to  have  advanced  us  radically 
in  this.  The  Inquisition  changes  its  basis, 
that  is  all.  A  child  inquired  with  terror, 
on  first  hearing  of  the  Andover  controversy, 
"  Are  they  heretics,  Mamma  ?  Will  they  be 
burned  ?  "  For  the  rack  and  the  molten  Vir- 
gin, we  have  the  ordination  service  and  the 
examination  before  the  Board  of  Commis- 
sioners for  Foreign  Missions.     The  torture  by 


THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.         181 

insomnia  has  only  taken  on  a  finer  phase.     A 
good   man  who  is  not   sure  that  the  Bible  in- 
sists upon  belief  in  everlasting  damnation  as  a 
condition  of  reliable  character,  is  pronounced 
unfit  to  teach  to   cannibals   the   elements  of 
Christian  courtesy.     There  is  no  doubt   that 
young  men  of  the  finest  dedication  and  most 
original  disposition  of  thought  are  warned  out 
of  our  pulpits  to-day  by  the  theological  tor- 
ture-chamber through  which  a  virile  conscience 
must  pass  before  the  authority  of  the  church 
is  laid  upon  the  longing  to  preach  the  gospel 
of  love  to  men.     Robert  IngersoU  is  the  direct 
descendant   of   the   Westminster    Confession. 
"  Brethren,"  cried  Cromwell  to  the  framers  of 
that  moral  rack,  "  I  beseech  you  in  tlie  bowels 
of  the  Lord,  believe  it  possible  that  you  may 
be  mistaken !  " 

In  a  Southern  town  known  to  the  writer, 
seven  churches  of  different  sects  exist.  Not 
one  is  able  to  support  a  pastor.  Itinerants  of 
different  denominations  visit  this  interesting 
and  typical  place  by  turns.  One  Sunday  you 
have  Hobson's  choice  of  your  Methodist ;  the 
next  you  must  play  Lutheran ;  and  so  on. 
The  whole  village  turns  out,  and  prays  ac- 


182  THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

cordingly.  The  days  of  worship  are  known 
as  Baptist  Sunday,  or  Orthodox  Sunday,  or 
Universalist  Sunday,  or  whatever  it  may  be. 
"  But  when,"  asked  a  visitor  to  this  extraor- 
dinary people,  "  when  is  the  Lord's  Day  ?  " 

A  stranger  happening  in  at  Dean  Stanley's 
service  came  away  once  saying:  "I  went  to 
learn  the  way  to  heaven ;  I  was  told  the  way 
to  Palestine."  The  case  is  similar  with  us  in 
this  wise.  Many  and  dreary  are  the  times 
that  we  go  to  the  religion  of  our  day  to  learn 
the  way  to  heaven,  and  we  are  taught  the  way 
to  a  creed.  We  go  panting  with  spiritual 
thirst  and  aching  with  spiritual  hunger ;  we 
are  fed  with  theological  stones.  We  go  long- 
ing for  peace ;  we  find  a  sword.  We  go  in 
search  of  a  divine  Master ;  we  get  the  evan- 
gelical council.  We  seek  the  holy  and  the 
humble  instruction  that  trains  a  soul  for  the 
sacred  diploma  of  the  religious  teacher ;  we 
find  a  lawsuit.  We  seek  the  cross  of  Christ ; 
we  find  the  Supreme  Court. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  ardent  workers 
in  the  temperance  movement  find  the  grog- 
shops and  the  churches  their  chief  obstacles. 
You  soon  learn  to  count  the  liquor-dealer  and 


THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.  183 

the  communicant  almost  equally  out  of  rank 
with  you  in  your  solitary  battle.     You  must 
bring  your  drunkard  to  the  vestry,  or  he  may 
as  well  go  drink.     You  must  save  your  "  re- 
formed man "  in   the    denomination,   or   you 
may  collect  your   library  and  piano  for  the 
club-room  —  as  very  likely  you   will  —  from 
the  impenitent  world.     I  was  once  present  at 
a  touching  scene  where  the  sacrament  of  the 
Lord's  Supper  was  administered  in  the  pres- 
ence of  a  crowd  of  fallen  men,  struggling  for 
a  new  life.    These  poor  fellows  could  not  have 
borne  so  much  as  the  odor  of  the  sacred  wine ; 
it  would  have  set  their  bodies  and  souls  on 
fire.    Pure  water  filled  the  nicked-plated  tank- 
ard of   the  communion   service.     The    bread 
and  the  water  of  life  were  blessed  before  the 
wistful  gaze  of  these  reverent  castaways.    The 
clergyman  officiating,  an  old   man  who  had 
dedicated  his  age  to  the  temperance  work,  and 
a  dozen  poor,  obscure,  unflocked  church-mem- 
bers in  the  communicants'  seats,  were  the  only 
representatives  of  the  church  of  Christ  pres- 
ent at  a  scene  which  was  a  matter  of  intense 
public  interest  in  the  city,  and  of  severe  eccle- 
siastical blame  to  the  temperance  people. 


184  THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF  CHRIST. 

It  is  amazing  that  we  should  even  have  to 
remind  ourselves  that  with  all  this  dead-line 
of  religious  respectability  the  Founder  of  our 
faith  had  no  more  to  do  than  he  had  with 
the  moral  example  of  Herod.  Christ  was  the 
come-outer  of  the  day.  He  was  the  Protest- 
ant ;  he  was  the  Liberal ;  he  was  the  victim 
of  spiritual  independence.  His  was  the  faith 
that  rises 

"  Just  to  scorn  the  consequence. 
And  just  to  do  the  thing." 

His  teaching  was  one  thrilling  protest  against 
ecclesiasticism.  His  life  was  one  pathetic  plea 
for  religious  freedom.  Love  thy  God  and  thy 
neighbor,  and  follow  me;  his  command  and 
our  duty  are  in  those  few  and  simple  words. 
He  cut  down  doctrinism  and  dogmatism  as  a 
mower  cuts  down  thistles.  In  his  insistence 
on  practical  holiness  there  was  no  room  for 
chatter  about  creeds.  He  gave  himself  to  God 
and  to  miserable  men.  This  fervent  young 
rabbi  had  no  time  to  formulate  a  "  Shorter 
Catechism.'* 

Fancy,  for  the  nonce,  our  Lord  appointed 
chairman  of  the  examining  committee  of  a 
heresy-hunting  church  to-day.     One  imagines 


THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.         185 

the  eloquent  silence  with  which  he  would  sit 
out  the  accepted  tests  of  fitness  for  member- 
ship in  his  visible  church.  What  does  the 
candidate  believe  concerning  the  total  deprav- 
ity of  all  mankind  ?  Is  he  aware  that  he  com- 
mitted the  sin  of  Adam  ?  What  are  his  views 
upon  the  eternal  damnation  of  the  finally  im- 
penitent? Has  he  faith  in  the  sanctity  of  im- 
mersion? Does  he  accept  the  sacrament  of 
infant  sprinkling  ?  Test  his  knowledge  of  the 
Trinity.  Try  his  theory  of  the  nature  and 
office  of  the  Holy  Ghost.  Is  he  sound  upon 
the  doctrine  of  election  ?  Does  he  totter  upon 
justification  by  faith  ? 

Now  conceive  it  to  be  the  turn  of  the  mute 
presiding  Officer  to  put  questions  to  the  can- 
didate. One  may  imagine  that  the  test-ques- 
tions for  religious  character  would  now  take  a 
surprising  turn.  Have  you  a  pure  heart  ? 
Do  you  love  the  Lord  your  God  with  the 
whole  of  it  ?  Explain  to  us  your  relation  with 
your  neighbors.  Are  you  beloved  in  your 
home?  Can  you  control  your  temper?  Do 
you  talk  scandal?  Are  you  familiar  with 
the  condition  of  the  poor  ?  What  are  your 
methods  of   relieving  it?      Can  you  happily 


186  THE  CHRISTIAIilTY   OF   CHRIST. 

give  disagreeable  service  to  the  sick?  How 
do  you  bear  physical  suffering  when  it  falls 
to  your  own  lot  ?  How  many  drunkards  have 
you  tried  to  reform  ?  What  outcasts  have  you 
sought  to  save  ?  What  mourners  have  you 
comforted  ?  On  what  social  theory  do  you  in- 
vite guests  to  your  house  ?  What  proportion 
of  your  income  do  you  give  to  the  needs  of 
others  ?  What  do  you  understand  by  prayer 
to  God  ?  What  is  your  idea  of  a  Christ-like 
life? 

The  third  vital  chai*acteristic  of  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Christ  plainly  consists  in  his  unspar- 
ing and  unswerving  democracy.  It  is  not  pos- 
sible to  put  too  great  an  emphasis  upon  this 
fixed  and  terribly-neglected  truth.  We  say 
in  glib  familiar  phrase  that  the  basis  of  Chris- 
tianity is  the  brotherhood  of  humanity  —  what 
has  been  usefully  called  the  "  enthusiasm  of  hu- 
manity." Not  one  in  twenty  of  us  realizes  that 
this  means  an  ideal  of  daily  life  as  far  above 
our  own  as  the  centre  of  the  solar  system  is 
above  the  level  of  the  sea.  Which  of  us  gives 
the  recognition  of  imitation  to  the  astonishing 
example  of  Jesus  in  this  regard  ?    Christ  was 


THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.  187 

tlie  educated  and  sanctified  socialist.  He  was 
the  consistent  democrat.  He  was  the  conse- 
crated agitator.  Social  rank  simply  did  not 
exist  for  him.  Caste  he  scorned.  A  fisherman 
was  his  most  intimate  friend.  He  accepted 
the  hospitality  of  an  ostracized  man.  He  con- 
versed fearlessly  and  naturally  with  abandoned 
women.  He  did  not  refuse  to  penitent  out- 
casts the  preciousness  of  his  personal  friend- 
ship. He  was  never  known  to  shrink  from 
foul  diseases.  Vulgar  natures  he  treated  with 
the  patience  of  high  refinement.  The  "  com- 
mon people  '*  loved  him.  He  denounced  the 
fashionable  shams  of  his  times  with  the  non- 
chalance of  an  emperor  and  the  intelligence 
of  an  artisan.  He  scathed  the  petty  preten- 
sions of  the  leaders  of  society  with  that  in- 
difference to  criticism  characteristic  of  high 
birth,  and  that  sympathy  with  what  we  call 
the  "  lower  classes  "  incident  to  a  personal  ex- 
perience of  poverty.  His  social  theories  held 
the  relentlessness  of  love.  There  is  no  polite 
way  of  evading  them.  There  is  no  well-bred 
opportunity  of  ignoring  them.  The  Chris- 
tianity of  Christ  must  meet  them  point-blank. 
They  are  its  essential  test.     They  are  its  first 


188  THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

and  final  demand.  Mai  thus  has  reminded  us 
that  the  histories  of  mankind  which  we  possess 
are,  in  general,  only  histories  of  the  higher 
classes.  Authentic  Christianity  must  be  a 
history  of  the  masses.  Socially  considered,  a 
Christian  must  be,  in  a  sense,  interestingly 
varied  from  the  old  theological  one,  "  born 
again."  He  has  new  kin,  he  makes  new  neigh- 
bors, he  incurs  new  social  obligations,  he  read- 
justs his  position  in  human  society,  or  he 
might  as  well  go  call  himself  a  Druid. 

The  fashionable  church  has  received  its  full 
share  of  derision,  from  critics  who  may  not  be 
worthy  of  a  back  seat  in  it ;  but  that  does  not 
affect  the  fact  that  it  deserves  all  it  gets.  The 
recent  popular  attack  upon  the  pew-rental  sys- 
tem may  not  be  made  altogether  from  a  de- 
vout point  of  view ;  none  the  less  it  will  do 
good.  Sexton  Williams  has  let  fly  a  fiery- 
winged  truth  ;  and  the  girl  -  reporter  who 
found  herself  welcomed  by  only  five  New  York 
churches,  although  employed  in  the  service  of 
the  newspapers  rather  than  of  the  Lord,  has 
put  her  shabbily-gloved  finger  upon  the  spot 
where  the  tuberculosis  of  our  religious  system 
sets  in.     It  is  the  undecorated  fact,  that  if 


THE  CHRISTIANITY   OF  CHRIST.         189 

Jesus  Christ  were  to  enter  almost  any  of  our 
influential  churches  to-day  he  would  be  shown 
into  the  back  gallery ;  and  he  could  not  obtain 
admission  to  our  parlors  without  a  letter  of 
introduction  from  some  person  in  our  "  set." 
"  You  will  find,"  says  a  nice  observer,  "  that 
so  far  as  people  are  reached  by  religious  wor- 
ship outside  of  their  especial  religious  belief, 
it  is  the  social  recognition  which  has  won 
them." 

In  a  luxurious  home,  whose  invitations  are 
not  declined,  whose  hospitality  is  familiar  to 
many  distinguished  men  and  women  of  our 
land,  there  may  be  found,  any  day,  mingled 
with  the  most  gifted  guests,  plain,  poor,  ob- 
scure people,  quite  unknown  in  "society."  I 
once  saw,  at  a  breakfast  at  this  house,  the 
foremost  poet  in  the  country  seated  beside  a 
massage  rubber,  a  poor  girl  training  herself 
for  the  practice  of  medicine,  and  in  need  of 
two  things  —  a  good  breakfast  and  a  glimpse 
into  the  cultivated  world.  She  had  both,  in 
the  Lord's  name,  in  that  Christian  home.  Yet 
the  spirit  of  that  ideal  hospitality  is  so  rare 
that  we  tell  of  it  as  we  do  of  heroic  deeds. 
The  Christianity  of  Christ  would  make  it  so 


190  THE   CHRISTIANITY   OF  CHRIST. 

common  that  we  should  notice  it  only  as  we  do 
the  sunrise. 

There  does  not  exist  outside  of  the  New 
Testament  such  a  conception  of  the  Christian 
spirit  as  the  great  Frenchman  (not  distin- 
guished for  ecclesiastical  views  of  God,  but  ex- 
iled for  his  practical  love  of  man)  gave  us  in 
the  greatest  work  of  fiction  since  Shakespeare. 
Who  forgets  the  Bishop  in  "  Les  Miserables," 
immortal  because  he  acted  like  Christ?  His 
palace  was  converted  into  a  hospital,  his  in- 
come expended  for  the  suffering.  Out  of  the 
luxuries  of  his  highly  civilized  past,  the  "  spir- 
itual man  of  the  world  "  (as  Margaret  Fuller 
would  put  it)  had  saved  an  elegant  toilet-case, 
a  few  silver  plates,  and  silver  candlesticks. 
*'  Knock  ^Aere,"  said  the  citizen  to  the  ex- 
galley-slave  whom  no  other  roof  would  shelter. 

"The  Bishop  touched  his  hand  gently,  and 
said  :  — 

"  *  You  need  not  tell  me  who  you  are.  This  is 
not  my  house  ;  it  is  the  house  of  Christ.  It  does 
not  ask  any  comer  whether  he  has  a  name,  but 
whether  he  has  an  affliction.'  " 

In  all  uninspired  literature  what   is   finer 


THE   CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.         191 

than  the  scene  between  the  Bishop  and  Val- 
jean,  when  the  gendarmes  bring  the  arrested 
guest  and  silver  back  to  this  threshold  of  su- 
perhuman hospitality. 

"  '  Ah,  there  you  are !  '  said  Monseigneur ;  *  I  am 
glad  to  see  you.  But  I  gave  you  the  candlesticks 
also,  which  are  silver  like  the  rest  and  would  bring 
you  two  hundred  francs.  Why  did  you  not  take 
them  along  with  your  plate  ?  '  " 

Left  alone  with  the  astounded  thief,  the 
Christian  idealist  grew  stern  and  solemn :  — 

" '  Never  forget  that  you  have  promised  me  to 
use  this  silver  to  become  an  honest  man.  .  .  .  Jean 
Valjean,  my  brother,  you  belong  no  longer  to  evil 
but  to  good.  It  is  your  soul  that  I  am  buying  for 
you.  I  withdraw  it  from  dark  thoughts  and  from 
the  spirit  of  perdition,  and  I  give  it  to  God  !  '  " 

The  child  of  such  a  spiritual  god-father, 
who  wonders  that  Jean  Valjean,  the  galley 
slave,  becomes  Mayor  Madeleine,  the  saint  of 
a  district,  and  the  protector  of  every  despised 
and  rejected  creature  in  it  ?  It  is  thus  that 
the  Christianity  of  Christ  ought  to  be  spir- 
itually inherited.  The  idea  cultivated  by  the 
liturgic  church,  that  the  laying-on  of  apostolic 


192  THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

hands  creates  an  ancestry  of  priestly  power, 
is  a  pleasant  fancy,  pale  beside  what  might  be 
the  tremendous  facts  of  moral  heredity  in  the 
Christian  life.  The  possibilities  of  culture  in 
this  direction  are  unfathomed.  Said  Daniel 
Webster,  in  his  private  confession  of  faith  :  — 

"  I  believe  that  the  experiments  and  subtleties  of 
human  wisdom  are  more  likely  to  obscure  than  to 
enlighten  the  revealed  will  of  God,  and  that  he  is 
the  most  accomplished  scholar  who  has  been  edu- 
cated at  the  feet  of  Jesus,  and  in  the  College  of 
Fishermen." 

When  all  is  said,  it  comes  to  this :  Type, 
not  argument,  governs  men ;  and  the  Christ- 
type  will  control  the  world  just  as  soon  as  and 
no  sooner  than  it  is  consistent,  simple,  ardent, 
and  sincere.  Christianity  cannot  expect  to 
become  a  science  on  inattention  which  would 
destroy  the  perfection  of  a  phonograph,  nor 
to  conquer  society  by  a  series  of  "  bolting  " 
experiments  which  would  defeat  any  political 
party  known  to  civilized  nations.  Common 
sense  holds  the  balance  of  power  in  religion  as 
much  as  it  does  in  affairs.  There  is  what  we 
may  call  a  common  spirituality,  to  which  hu- 
man respect  always  defers.     The  Christianity 


THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST.         193 

of  Christ  necessitates  a  personal  consecration 
fanned  to  a  white-heat  that  burns  to  ashes  all 
the  ordinary  standards  of  conduct ;  involves  a 
religious  toleration  "  all  love,  and  of  love  all 
worthy ;  "  requires  an  estimate  of  social  val- 
ues absolutely  revolutionary  to  our  accepted 
models. 

The  time  can  come,  and  if  it  can,  it  must, 
when  the  New  Testament  shall  be  intelligently 
adapted  to  the  twentieth  century.  The  time 
must  come,  and  if  it  must,  it  can,  when  spir- 
itual caste  shall  be  the  only  basis  of  social 
rank.  If  Christ's  life  means  anything,  this 
is  inevitable.  The  imagination  falters  before 
the  progress  of  a  consecrated  sociology.  It 
would  be  an  interesting  science  to  a  cynic,  and 
fascinating  to  an  enthusiast.  "  The  night  is 
far  spent,  O  householders,"  said  Gautama; 
''  it  is  time  for  you  to  do  what  you  deem 
most  fit." 

It  has  been  well  said  that  all  problems  re- 
solve themselves  into  the  problem  of  personal 
righteousness.  The  key  to  our  perplexities 
lies  no  further  than  a  devout  and  dedicated 
heart.  The  life  of  the  Nazarene  will  bewilder 
society  with  astigmatic  optical  interpretations 


194  THE  CHRISTIANITY  OF  CHRIST. 

not  an  hour  beyond  the  time  when  we  bring" 
to  bear  upon  it  the  lens  of  a  public  purity  that 
shuts  out  private  difference  or  default ;  as  for- 
eign war  called  from  the  bickering  Hellenes 
"  Greek  curses  to  Persia  "  and  "  Greek  tears 
to  Athens." 

Outside  of  touching  individual  exceptions, 
which  prove  the  rule  with  a  kind  of  divine 
silence  and  shame  like  that  in  which  our 
Master  wrote  with  his  finger  on  the  ground  in 
the  presence  of  the  erring  woman,  the  Chris- 
tianity of  Christ  is  an  unachieved  ideal ;  but 
it  is  as  practicable  as  that  of  truth  or  honor. 
And,  after  all,  it  is  one  of  our  "  literary 
class "  who  has  put  the  whole  argument  for 
us  in  these  reverberating  words  :  — 

"  If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  man, 
And  only  a  man,  I  say 
That  of  all  mankind  I  cleave  to  him, 
And  to  him  will  cleave  alway. 


(( 


If  Jesus  Christ  is  a  God, 

And  the  only  God,  I  swear 

I  will  follow  Him  through  heaven  and  hell, 

The  earth,  the  sea,  and  the  air  !  " 


VI. 

THE  PSYCHICAL  OPPORTUNITY. 

In  February,  1882,  there  was  organized  in 
London  a  society  whicli  had  what  one  is  half 
tempted  to  call  the  opportunity  of  the  cen- 
tury in  its  hands.  In  these  days,  —  when  the 
multiple  power  of  the  unit  has  reached  a  point 
of  social  infliction  which  makes  every  fresh 
combination  of  human  beings  an  object  of 
dread,  if  not  of  suspicion  ;  when  the  well-in- 
structed citizen  adds  to  his  litany :  "  Deliver 
us  from  associations,  and  lead  us  not  into 
committees !  "  when  people  who  draw  up  a 
constitution  and  by  -  laws,  for  any  purpose 
whatever,  must  show  their  charter,  or  stand 
back  in  the  name  of  over-organized  humanity, 
—  it  is  much  to  say  of  any  newly  associated 
effort  that  its  final  cause  seems  so  adequate  as 
that  of  the  Society  for  Psychical  Research. 

The  prospectus  of  this  society  says :  — 

"  It  has  been  widely  felt  that  the  present  is  an 


106         THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY. 

opportune  time  for  making  an  organized  and  sys- 
tematic attempt  to  investigate  that  large  group  of 
debatable  phenomena  designated  by  such  terms  as 
mesmeric,  psychical,  and  spiritualistic.  From  the  re- 
corded testimony  of  many  competent  witnesses,  past 
and  present,  including  observations  recently  made 
by  scientific  men  of  eminence  in  various  countries, 
there  appears  to  be,  amidst  much  illusion  and  de- 
ception, an  important  body  of  remarkable  phe- 
nomena, which  are  priTnd  facie  inexplicable  on 
any  generally  recognized  hypothesis,  and  which,  if 
incontestably  established,  would  be  of  the  highest 
possible  value." 

It  is  not  necessary  to  quarrel  with  the  as- 
sertion of  the  well-known  and  well-informed 
gentlemen  who  stand  sponsors  for  this  society, 
when  they  proceed  to  say  that 

"  The  task  of  examining  such  residual  phenom- 
ena has  often  been  undertaken  by  individual  effort, 
but  never  hitherto  by  a  scientific  society  organized 
on  a  sufficiently  broad  basis." 

When  the  greatest  intellectual  discovery  of 
our  times  was  made,  it  was  wrought  out  of  the 
inductive  method,  inch  by  inch,  laboriously, 
consistently,  and  triumphantly.  The  theory 
of  evolution  was  a  masterpiece  of  loving  toil. 


THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY.         197 

and  of  relentless  logic.  Darwin  ^  was  twenty- 
two  years  in  collecting  and  controlling  the  ma- 
terial for  the  "  Origin  of  Species "  and  the 
"  Descent  of  Man."  Wallace,  who  competed 
with  him  for  the  formulation  of  the  evolu- 
tionary law,  was  submerged  like  one  of  their 
own  shells  in  the  waves  that  beat  upon  the 
shores  of  the  Malay  archipelago.  These  men 
gave  their  souls  and  bodies  to  become  students 
of  the  habits  of  a  mollusk  or  a  monkey,  the 
family  peculiarities  of  a  bug  or  a  bird,  the 
private  biographies  of  a  mastodon  or  a  polyp, 
the  measurable  but  imperceptible  movement 
of  a  glacier,  the  ancestry  of  a  parasite,  the 
vanity  of  a  butterfly,  the  digestion  of  a  fly- 
catcher, the  moral  nature  of  a  climbing  plant, 
or  the  journey  of  an  insect  from  one  desert 
island  to  another  upon  a  floating  bough. 

Induction,  which  is  as  familiar  as  Bacon, 
and  as  old  as  philosophy,  became,  in  the 
hands  of  the  "  Greatest  since  Newton,"  an  ap- 

1  "  It  occurred  to  me,"  he  says,  "in  1837,  that  some- 
thing might  perhaps  be  made  out  on  this  question  by  pa- 
tiently accumulating  and  reflecting.  .  .  .  After  Jive  years' 
work,  I  allowed  myself  to  speculate  on  the  subject  .  . .  from  that 
period  to  the  present  day,  I  have  steadily  pursued  the  same 
object."  — Introduction  to  Origin  of  Species,  published  in 
1859. 


198    THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY. 

plied  force  which  has  taught  the  century  — 
nay,  which  has  taught  all  time  and  all  truth 
—  a  solemn  lesson.  Two  things  are  needed 
to  the  discovery  of  a  great  principle :  the 
power  to  attend,  and  the  power  to  infer.  We 
might  add  a  third,  the  power  to  imagine, 
which  may  be  overlooked  in  the  construction 
of  important  theory ;  but,  whatever  may  be 
said  of  that,  the  power  to  attend,  coming  first 
in  order,  must  be  first  considered.  Darwin's 
colossal  success  was  owing,  to  an  extent  which 
it  is  impossible  for  a  lesser  mind  to  measure,  to 
his  almost  supernatural  power  of  attention  to 
the  natural ;  his  superhuman  patience  of  ob- 
servation and  record.  He  observed  and  re- 
corded as  no  other  man  of  our  day  has  done ; 
his  power  of  inference  proved  equal  to  his  ob- 
serving and  recording  power  ;  and  we  have  the 
doctrine  of  evolution  by  which  physical  science 
has  been  the  first,  but  will  not  be  the  last,  may 
even  prove  to  be  the  least  of  human  interests 
yet  to  profit  unspeakably. 

It  would  seem  that  the  trained  minds  called 
to  the  leadership  of  the  new  psychical  move- 
ment have  been  prompt  to  turn  the  ge'ist  of 
the  century  in  the  last  direction  in  which  we 


THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY.        199 

should  have  looked  for  it.  The  current  that 
wrought  marvels  out  of  stocks  and  stones  they 
propose  to  pour  upon  air  and  essence.  What 
conquered  matter  shall  assail  mind.  What 
ordered  order  shall  dominate  the  disorderly. 
The  scientific  method  shall  now  rule  the  un- 
scientific madness,  and  we  shall  see  what  we 
shall  see. 

In  the  metaphysical  and  in  the  physical 
worlds  the  legal  fibre  is  essentially  the  same. 
The  material  differs  more  than  the  method. 
In  this  case  there  exists  one  distinction :  that 
it  is  in  a  peculiar  sense  to  the  help  of  the  un- 
learned that  the  learned  have  appealed  in  the 
work  of  the  psychical  organizations.  Here  is 
a  mass  of,  let  us  say,  asserted  but  unverified 
fact,  which,  if  true,  is  of  immeasurable  im- 
portance to  the  interests  of  the  human  race. 
Such  verification  is  not,  as  yet,  to  be  found 
in  libraries  or  in  laboratories.  Telescope  and 
microscope,  chip-hammer  and  retort,  do  not 
serve  the  case.  The  literature  of  the  subject 
is,  in  great  part,  untested,  illegal,  whimsical, 
prehistoric  to  the  spirit  of  the  scientific  era, 
and  to  the  spirit  in  which,  if  at  all,  such  a 
subject  must  now  be  approached.     Here  we 


200         THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY. 

have  to  deal  with  an  inchoate  accumulation 
of  mind-facts  or  soul-facts,  of  which  the  mind 
or  the  soul  must  be  clerk,  witness,  judge,  and 
juror.  Here,  especially,  we  have  to  do  with 
confused  freshets  and  land-slides  of  material 
which,  preeminently  above  other  material  that 
science  has  sought  to  arrange  and  label,  de- 
pends upon  the  intelligence  and  veracity  of 
human  beings  for  its  classification.  Here,  in 
short,  we  come  yesterday,  to-day,  and  forever, 
jaggedly  against  the  supreme  difficulties  at- 
taching to  the  validity  and  credibility  of  tes- 
timony. Here,  because  of  the  supremacy  of 
these  difficulties,  superstition  and  science  must 
not  shoot,  but  grapple. 

Hence,  we  see,  with  a  keen  sense  of  their 
wisdom,  the  officers  of  the  psychical  societies 
appealing,  at  the  outset,  to  the  public  for  co- 
operation in  the  work  of  investigating  that 
which  is  hidden,  not  in  desert  islands,  or  in 
glaciers,  or  in  craters,  or  in  crucibles,  or  in 
cuneiform  inscriptions,  but  in  human  experi- 
ence. On  human  intelligence  and  veracity 
the  test  must  strike ;  it  would  seem  that  the 
electric  light  of  science  blazes  white  enough 
now,  if  ever,  to  try  them.     Did  it  seem  a  du- 


THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY.         201 

bious  experiment  to  flood  the  English-reading 
world  with  little  circulars  asking  for  authentic 
cases  of  mind-reading,  or  visions,  as  reported 
at  first-hand  by  reporters  willing  to  be  per- 
sonally investigated  ?  Was  it  with  amusement 
that  we  first  saw  these  dignified  gentlemen 
subpoena  apparitions  from  the  most  intelli- 
gent families  ?  Did  we  fall  into  the  automatic 
attitudes  of  perplexity  when  English  science 
solemnly  sent  social  cards  to  haunted  houses  ? 
Did  we  ask  why  this  precious  ointment  was 
not  sold  to  the  poor,  when  we  saw  learned 
men  playing  the  "  Willing  Game  "  in  country- 
houses  to  find  out  whether  the  human  mind 
can  get  through  sealed  walls  ?  And  when  one 
of  the  most  important  philosophical  chairs  in 
this  country  is  represented  on  the  committee 
inviting  spiritualistic  mediums  to  "  demon- 
strate to  us  experimentally  their  possession  of 
peculiar  powers,"  do  we  sneer  or  smile  ? 

If  we  are  wise,  we  shall  do  neither.  It  may 
not  be  too  much  to  say  that  the  greatest  phys- 
ical and  metaphysical  scholars  of  our  day  can 
do  no  better  thing  with  their  gifts,  or  their 
greatness,  than  to  apply  to  the  psychical  facts 
the  sheer  force  which  has  conquered  the  phys- 


202  THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY. 

ical  —  the  force  that  adequately  observes  and 
records  before  inferring ;  or,  as  Darwin  puts 
it,  that  "accumulates"  before  "reflecting." 
As  the  apostle  of  evolution  collected,  collated, 
colligated  his  enormous  array  of  facts  before 
theorizing,  they  who  undertake  this  other  task 
would  collect,  collate,  and  colligate  the  dis- 
array of  their  facts  before  they  theorize. 

Men  have  dedicated  their  lives  to  the  classi- 
fication of  an  insect,  or  the  cultivation  of  an  ac- 
cent. Why  not  study  the  power  which  makes 
one  man  able  to  make  another  say  Peter  Piper, 
across  the  width  of  the  house,  with  the  doors 
shut  ?  The  spirit  which  gave  to  the  world  her 
great  scientific  gospel  devoured  itself  till  it 
knew  why  the  flesh  of  a  creature  invisible  with- 
out the  miscroscope,  was  of  the  color  of  the  leaf 
on  which  it  lived  and  died.  Why,  then,  should 
not  a  man  keep  tally  of  the  relative  number 
of  times  that  a  blindfold  subject  will  select  the 
right  card  from  a  pack  ?  "  High  authorities  " 
have  wearied  themselves  to  account  for  the 
difference  in  the  molars  and  premolars  within 
the  jaws  of  the  dog  and  the  Tasmanian  wolf. 
May  not  a  scientist  eat  mustard,  to  see  if  his 
mesmeric  recipient  will  say  that  his  mouth  is 


THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY.         203 

burnt  ?  Or  even  ask  why  a  valuable  piece  of 
property  stands  unrented  for  a  generation, 
because  a  dead  woman  is  said  to  be  heard  sob- 
bing in  it?  In  brief,  are  not  the  methods 
which  overcome  the  mysteries  of  matter  en- 
titled to  the  same  exercise  and  to  the  same 
respect  that  they  have  had,  when  they  are  ap- 
plied to  the  mysteries  of  mind  ?  Here,  we 
say,  are  the  facts.  Hundreds  of  people,  whose 
word  of  honor  is  as  good  intellectual  coin  as 
that  of  the  reader  of  this  page  or  the  writer 
of  this  paper  have  testified  to  the  conveyance 
of  thought,  without  visible  or  audible  or  tan- 
gible media,  from  embodied  mind  to  embodied 
mind  ;  to  the  tragic  or  the  trivial  incidents  of 
mesmerism  ;  to  the  coincidence  of  dreams  ;  to 
the  prophecy  of  mental  convictions ;  to  the 
visual  appearance  of  the  distant  living ;  to 
the  sight  or  sign  of  what  is  thought  to  be  the 
more  distant  dead. 

Thousands  of  sensible  and  reliable  men  and 
women  to  -  day  believe  these  things  on  the 
strength  of  personal  experience  ;  and,  believ- 
ing, accept  them  with  such  explanation  of  their 
own  as  they  may,  in  default  of  any  from  silent 
science.      It  would  seem  as   if  these  circum- 


204         THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY. 

stances  were  of  as  much  importance  to  science 
as  the  transverse  lamellae  in  the  beak  of  a 
shoveler  duck,  or  the  climate  of  the  lowlands 
under  the  equator  during  the  severe  part  of 
the  glacial  period. 

A  cautious  Spiritualist,  prominently  identi- 
fied with  the  movements  of  his  sect,  in  reply  to 
inquiries  made  for  use  in  this  paper  writes :  — 

"  I  think  it  would  be  within  bounds  to  say,  that  in 
this  country,  the  number  who  have  by  personal  inves- 
tigation come  into  what  they  believe  to  be  a  knowl- 
edge of  spirit  return  and  manifestation  is  not  less 
than  2,000,000,  and  that  a  still  larger  number  have 
experienced  enough  to  satisfy  them  that  there  '  is 
something  in  it,'  but  how  much  they  don't  know.'* 

Estimates  two  or  three  times  as  large  are 
made  by  less  careful  zealots.  The  writer  of 
the  article  on  Spiritualism  in  the  "  American 
Encyclopaedia,"  says  :  — 

"  As  the  organized  bodies  of  Spiritualists  include 
but  a  small  proportion  of  those  who  wholly  or  par- 
tially accept  these  phenomena,  it  is  impossible  to 
make  even  an  approximate  estimate  of  their  num- 
ber." 

In  Great  Britain,  the  number  is  supposed 
to  be  larger  than  among  ourselves.     Here,  let 


THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY.        205 

US  say,  to  take  the  most  modest  figures,  are 
two  millions  of  our  people,  intelligent  enough 
to  conduct  the  affairs  and  obey  the  laws  of 
average  civilized  society,  who  habitually  and 
confidently  approach  the  awful  verities  of 
death  through  the  unexplained  trance  which 
we  content  ourselves  with  calling  a  morbid 
nervous  condition ;  people  whose  main  reli- 
gious faith  is  formulated  —  God  help  them  !  — 
in  the  columns  of  papers  most  of  which  we 
never  read  if  we  can  help  it,  or  in  the  pages 
of  what  they  are  pleased  to  call  a  New  Bible, 
spiritually  communicated  through  mediums  of 
the  sect.  Say  what  we  may  (and  we  ought  to 
say  it)  of  the  nonsense,  say  what  we  may  of 
the  fraud,  of  the  jugglery,  the  hysteria,  the 
blasphemy  mixed  to  a  mush  with  the  whole 
matter,  the  significant  fact  remains,  that  here 
is  a  huge  class  not  of  the  lowest  or  most  illit- 
erate, while  not  yet,  to  any  marked  extent,  of 
the  wisest  or  highest,  who  believe  themselves, 
in  our  highly-illuminated  times,  to  have  found 
some  means  of  access  to  the  consciousness  of 
their  dead.  Here  is  the  massive  bulwark  of 
the  mystery  —  be  it  from  within  or  from  with- 
out ;  were  it  from  above  or  from  below ;  call  it 


206         THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY. 

a  base  trick  or  a  glorious  possibility  — where 
the  Prince  of  the  Power  of  the  Air  intrenches 
himself ;  that  he  gives  or  assumes  to  give,  or 
is  believed  to  give  to  the  starving  human  heart, 
bereaved  of  its  bread  of  life,  the  crumbs  from 
the  table  of  Love  and  Death.  Were  it  not  as 
great  a  deed,  is  it  not  as  large  a  duty,  to  hunt 
down  the  facts  behind  this  faith,  to  grip  the 
truth  from  out  this  error,  to  have  this  law  that 
lies  between  the  body  and  the  soul,  as  it  were 
to  discover  the  link  between  a  monkey  and  a 
man  ? 

Modern  science  is  systematically  severe  in 
the  conditions  which  she  lays  upon  the  spirit 
of  inquiry.  The  spirit  of  inquiry  may,  in 
turn,  demand  something  of  her.  We  say  a 
great  deal  in  these  days  about  the  scientific 
basis  of  thought  and  action.  What  do  we 
mean  by  it  ?  We  suppose  ourselves  to  mean 
that  a  subject  shall  be  approached  with  two 
qualifications :  equipment  and  candor ;  the 
presence  of  equivalent  ability,  and  the  absence 
of  nullifying  prejudice.  These  two  endow- 
ments we  have  the  right  to  expect  of  any  in- 
vestigators who  penetrate  the  unexplored  upon 


THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY.         207 

the  map  of  Truth.  We  may  assume  that  the 
eminent  officers  and  members  of  the  psychical 
societies  represent  a  wide  enough  range  of 
training,  psychological  and  physiological,  re- 
ligious and  skeptical,  to  deprive  us  of  all  ne- 
cessity to  question  their  possession  of  the  first 
of  these  conditions.  As  to  the  latter,  we  have 
read  of  the  chemist  who  said  to  a  philosopher : 
"But  the  chemical  facts,  my  dear  sir,  are 
precisely  the  reverse  of  what  you  suppose." 
"  Have  the  goodness,  then,"  was  the  instanta- 
neous reply,  "  to  tell  me  what  they  are,  that 
I  may  explain  them  on  my  system."  Such  a 
spirit,  which,  alas !  is  newer  than  the  story, 
would  be  worse  than  no  spirit  at  all,  in  the 
attempt  to  bring  down  so  subtle  and  mock- 
ing a  truth  as  that  which  flies  or  floats  in  ob- 
scure psychical  phenomena.  We  have  to  deal 
now  with  wings,  not  clay ;  we  must  use  arrows 
and  nets,  not  derricks  and  dynamite.  We 
must  take  straight  lines  through  infinite  ether, 
and  measure  the  velocities  of  the  zephyrs, 
and  the  atmospheric  pressure  of  mists.  We 
have  to  keep  the  judgment  as  open  as  a  cloud 
to  the  colors  of  the  sun.  Our  observation 
must  be  aerometric. 


208    THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY. 

There  were  scholars  among  the  contempo- 
raries of  Galileo  who  never  would  consent  to 
look  through  a  telescope,  lest  they  should  be 
compelled  to  admit  the  existence  of  the  stars 
which  he  had  discovered.  Such  intellectual 
palsy  is  not  out  of  the  world's  system  yet.  It 
is  the  rarest  thing  upon  earth  to  be  fair.  It 
is  a  rarer  thing,  among  what  are  called  sci- 
entific minds,  than  this  paper  has  space  to  jus- 
tify itself  for  asserting.  Of  all  human  teach- 
ers, they  whose  claim  to  our  respect  is  founded 
most  confidently  upon  their  endowment  fail 
us  sometimes  most  roundly  in  this  secondary 
qualification  of  simple,  human  candor.  The 
bigotry  of  the  laboratory  and  the  library  is 
quite  as  robust  as  the  bigotry  of  the  altar  and 
the  creed.  The  prcejudiciuni  which  is  infil- 
trated with  matter  and  fact  is  as  stiff  as  that 
which  has  become  hygroscopic  of  mind  and 
theory.  We  hear  a  great  deal  about  the  value 
of  scientific  evidence.  We  have  the  right  to 
ask  a  great  deal  of  the  scientific  attitude. 
What  should  it  be  ?  That  which  George 
Eliot  would  call  one  of  "  massive  receptive- 
ness."  What  must  it  be?  That  which  will 
stand  the  test  of  its  own  primer  and  grammar. 


THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY.         209 

Wise  are  they  who  would  be  unsparing  as  a 
sieve  made  from  the  hair  on  the  brows  of 
Minerva,  in  their  definition  of  "  evidence ;  " 
what  sifts  through  those  exquisite  meshes  is 
worth  the  pains.  An  imperceptible  jar  of 
human  prejudice  may  spoil  the  finest  web  of 
attention  and  inference  that  ever  the  human 
mind  has  wrought.  It  is  his  first  privilege, 
who  would  take  the  attitude  that  qualifies  him 
for  handling  delicate  evidence,  to  see  to  it  that 
his  candor  is  educated  equally  with  his  skill. 
We  have  passed  the  time  when  a  man  might 
assume  the  name  of  philosopher,  who  did  not 
hesitate  to  say  that  he  would  rather  be  in  the 
wrong  with  Plato  than  in  the  right  with  his 
opponents.  What  is  it,  indeed,  to  be  can- 
did, but  to  be  willing  to  see  a  thing  turn  out 
either  way  ?  What  is  the  scientific  spirit,  but 
the  honest  spirit  ?  What  is  the  investigating 
power,  but  the  judicial  power  ?  What  is  it  to 
be  wise,  but  to  be  just  ? 

A  keen  modern  writer  has  well  said,  that 
by  the  time  a  man  becomes  an  authority  in 
any  scientific  subject  he  becomes  a  nuisance 
upon  it,  because  he  is  sure  to  retain  errors 
which  were  in  vogue  when  he  was  young,  but 


210         THE  PSYCHICAL  OPPORTUNITY. 

which  a  newer  wisdom  has  rejected.  Such  an 
accusation  ought  to  become,  in  proportion  to 
the  enlightenment  of  the  age,  unjust  or  im- 
possible. The  qualification  of  candor  should 
grow  as  fast  as  that  of  equipment.  As  the 
intellectual  outfit  of  scholars  multiplies,  fair- 
ness in  the  use  of  it  should  increase  pro- 
portionately, must  increase  proportionately,  or 
the  investigating  power  "  loses  stroke "  upon 
one  side,  and  we  have  an  eagle  with  a  wing 
crippled  seeking  to  cut  a  straight  course  to  the 
stars,  or  expecting  the  observer  to  think  he 
does.  "  Were  there  a  single  man,"  says  Bacon, 
"  to  be  found  with  firmness  sufficient  to  efface 
from  his  mind  the  theories  and  notions  vul- 
garly received,  and  to  apply  his  intellect  free 
and  without  prevention,  the  best  hopes  might 
be  entertained  of  his  success." 

What  is  it,  then,  to  be  great,  but  to  be 
fair  ?  He  who  would  approach  a  subject  like 
this  of  which  we  write,  in  the  sacred  name  of 
science,  needs  to  be  manned  for  the  results, 
be  they  what  they  may.  This  matter  is  too 
large  for  any  littleness  of  spirit  to  grasp.  No 
prepossessions  are  going  to  get  at  it.  It  is  not 
time  yet  for  any  "  working  hypothesis."     It  is 


THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY.        211 

too  early  to  have  assurances  that  one  thing 
can,  or  another  cannot  be.  We  shall  never 
have  the  truth  by  inventing  it,  but  by  dis- 
covering it.  We  must  be  equal  to  the  sur- 
prises of  truth.  If  she  beat  the  breath  out  of 
our  dearest  delusions,  we  must  be  willing  to 
bury  them.  If  she  strike  the  keystone  out  of 
our  firmest  convictions,  we  must  be  able  to 
climb  their  ruins.  I  say,  without  hesitation, 
that  no  investigator  is  qualified  to  pass  judg- 
ment upon  psychical  phenomena,  who  is  not 
equally  ready  to  admit,  if  admit  he  must,  in 
the  end,  that  he  is  dealing  with  the  physiolog- 
ical action  of  cells  in  the  frontal  lobes  of  the 
brain,  or  with  the  presence  of  a  human  soul 
disembodied  by  death.  He  must  be  hospita- 
ble to  a  hallucination,  or  to  a  spectre.  He 
must  be,  if  necessary,  just  to  an  apparition 
as  well  as  generous  to  a  molecule.  He  must 
use  the  eyes  of  his  soul  as  well  as  the  lens 
his  microscope.  He  must  not  be  frightened 
away  from  the  discovery  of  some  superb  un- 
known law,  because  there  is  a  vulgar  din  of 
"  Ghosts !  "  about  his  ears.  He  had  better 
find  a  ghost,  if  ghost  there  be,  than  to  find 
nothing  at  all,  for  fear  it  may  not  be  "  sci° 


212         THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY. 

entific  "  to  walk  about  after  one  is  dead. 
That  does  not  deserve  the  name  of  the  sci- 
entific attitude  which  assumes  that  the  su- 
pernatural is  impossible,  any  more  than  that 
which  assumes  that  it  is  necessary.  No  fore- 
gone conclusion  which  restricts  the  nature  of 
an  undiscovered  law  to  a  purely  physical  basis 
is  more  scholarly  than  the  bias  which  preju- 
dicates  a  superhuman  agency  behind  the  dan- 
cing of  a  piano  in  the  air.  It  may  be  just  as 
unscientific  to  assert  prematurely  that  a  man 
of  honor,  intelligence,  and  education  is  suffer- 
ing from  a  mere  local  affection  of  the  retina, 
when  he  testifies  that  he  sees  and  converses 
with  the  image  of  his  distant  brother  at  the 
moment  of  that  brother's  death  by  accident,  as 
it  would  be  to  assert  that  Aristotle  expresses 
himself  to  the  American  public  through  the 
columns  of  the  "  Banner  of  Light."  It  may 
be  no  more  judicial  to  predetermine  that  the 
appearance  of  phosphorescent  letters  in  the 
air,  under  given  conditions,  must  of  necessity 
be  a  piece  of  jugglery,  than  it  would  be  to 
fall  upon  our  knees  before  it  as  the  work 
of  angels,  or  cross  ourselves  before  it  as  the 
threat  of  demons.     He  may  be  no  more  fitted 


THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY        213 

for  psychical  research  who  dismisses  a  cer- 
tified instance  of  the  clairaudient  inter-con- 
sciousness of  friends  a  thousand  miles  apart, 
as  a  foredoomed  coincidence  or  exaggeration, 
than  he  who  would  accept  the  "  communica- 
tion "  of  his  recently  dead  son,  sent  to  him 
unsought  by  the  medium  who  has  dared  to 
subject  the  sacred  privacy  of  a  stranger's  be- 
reavement to  the  paragraph  of  the  Spiritual- 
istic press,  happily  unaware  that  the  supposed 
spirit  has  forgotten,  in  the  educational  eleva- 
tion of  the  disembodied  life,  how  to  spell  his 
own  name.  The  philosophical  faculty  may  be 
no  more  exhibited  by  the  student  who  takes 
it  for  granted  that  the  raps  in  a  circle  of  in- 
vestigators are  made  by  knuckles  or  toe-joints, 
than  it  is  exhibited  by  the  man  who  guides  his 
investments  on  the  advice  of  a  female  medium 
who  does  not  know  the  difference  between  a 
United  States  registered  bond  and  Mr.  Micaw- 
ber's  note-of-hand.  To  assume  that  a  his- 
torical case  of  house  possession  like  that  of 
Wesley,  or  his  more  modern  fellow-sufferers, 
is  an  ingenious  trick  or  a  highly-developed  rat, 
is  perhaps,  if  we  think  of  it,  not  much  more 
intelligent  than  to  manage  one's  matrimonial 


214         THE  PSYCHICAL  OPPORTUNITY. 

affairs  in  accordance  with  tlie  direction  of  a 
gentleman  who  examines  locks  of  hair,  and 
charges  a  dollar  for  his  opinion. 

The  question :  What  is  evidence  ?  is  a  long 
one  to  answer;  but  the  question:  What  is 
prejudice?  is  short  enough.  The  stiff  ma- 
terialist is  not  educated  for  a  sound  investiga- 
tor any  more  than  the  limp  emotionalist ;  and 
the  impulse  to  decry,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  mental  or  psychical  basis  of  obscure  phe- 
nomena is  scarcely  more  reasonable  than  the 
hysteria  which  hangs  upon  Indian  babble  as 
the  utterance  of  the  intelligent  dead. 

W^e  have  said  that  it  is  too  early  to  accept 
a  working  hypothesis.  Suppose  that  the  tele- 
pathic theory  might  explain  an  immense  pro- 
portion (I  do  not  say  all)  of  what  are  called 
the  supernatural  facts  of  Spiritualism  ;  whether 
it  does  so,  we  have  not  yet  "  accumulated  and 
reflected"  enough  to  say.  Both  the  objec- 
tions to  and  the  arguments  for  the  adaptation 
of  telepathy  to  these  phenomena  are  keenly 
interesting ;  but  they  would  require  the  leis- 
ure of  a  monograph  to  discuss  them  intelli- 
gently. 

There  is  here,  we  say,  an  excellent  conjee- 


THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY.        215 

ture,  so  far  as  it  goes.  No  student  of  the  sub- 
ject can  deny  that.  But  no  student  of  the 
subject  ought  to  assume,  at  this  stage  of  the 
investigation,  that  telepathy  goes  far  enough. 
Wait.  Let  us  not  repeat  the  blunder  of  su- 
perstition or  of  incredulity.  Wait.  Let  us 
have  something  that  will  go  to  the  end  of  the 
matter.  Sir  Isaac  Newton  humbly  said  that 
he  had  one  talent ;  the  ability  to  look  steadily 
at  a  problem  until  he  saw  it  through.  The 
only  hope  that  we  have  in  dealing  with  this 
problem  of  problems  lies  in  the  will  and  the 
power  to  look  at  it  until  we  see  it  through. 
The  world  has  played  with  the  thing  long 
enough.  Otherwise  sensible  human  beings 
have  been  the  dupes  or  the  cynics  of  the  sub- 
ject from  age  to  age,  and  from  civilization  to 
civilization.  It  is  time  that  the  mystery  which 
has  baffled  twenty  centuries  found  its  mas- 
ter. Other  secrets  of  force  have  defied  and 
been  conquered.  Why  not  this  ?  Other  laws 
have  eluded  and  been  grasped.  Why  not 
this  ?  Other  dangers  have  been  dared,  other 
obstacles  pulverized,  other  ridicule  or  indiffer- 
ence waived,  other  patience  and  passion  spent 
for  other  conflicts  with  the  reluctance  of  na- 


216         TEE  rSYCEICAL  OPPORTUNITY. 

ture  to  surrender  truth.  Why  not  these,  and 
for  this  ?  Here  is  one  fact :  the  existence 
from  all  time  of  a  huge  sura  of  inexplicable 
phenomena.  Here  is  another :  the  intelligent 
human  will.  At  this  epoch  of  our  develop- 
ment there  ought,  if  ever,  to  be  an  equation 
between  the  two.  The  Indian  occultist,  the 
Jewish  sorcerer,  the  Scotch  seer,  the  Puritan 
witch,  the  modern  medium,  have  presented  but 
so  many  passing  forms  of  the  permanent  fact, 
which,  like  Ahasuerus,  has  wandered  from 
generation  to  generation,  a  homeless,  deathless, 
unwelcome  thing.  Like  the  Spanish  knight  in 
the  song,  it 

"  Rides  from  land  to  land, 
It  sails  from  sea  to  sea." 

If  the  time  has  come  to  break  lances  with  it, 
let  us  do  so  in  downright  earnest. 

That  was  a  timely  anecdote  recalled  by  one 
of  the  distinguished  investigators  in  London, 
and  attributed  to  Sir  William  Hamilton  and 
Airey.  It  was  Airey  who.  Sir  William  having 
alluded  to  some  important  mathematical  fact, 
answered :  "  No,  it  cannot  be."  The  great 
philosopher  gently  observed :  "  I  have  been 
investigating  it  closely  for  the  last  five  months, 


THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPOET UNITY.        217 

and  cannot  doubt  its  truth."  "  But,"  said 
Airey,  "  I  've  been  at  it  for  the  last  five  min- 
utes, and  cannot  see  it  at  all !  " 

The  psychical  opportunity,  as  it  may  be 
called,  takes  its  due  chronological  order  after 
the  great  physical  opportunity  of  which  mod- 
ern science  has  already  availed  itself,  and  may 
be  looked  upon  as  a  natural  sequence  —  as  a 
case  of  evolutionary  growth  in  investigation. 
After  the  more  demonstrable  comes  the  more 
elusive ;  after  the  more  manifest,  the  more 
occult.  We  are  now  to  prepare  for  what  an 
American  philosopher  calls  "  the  growing  pre- 
dominance of  the  psychical  life." 

View  it  through  whatever  glass  we  may, 
there  is  a  chance  here  for  a  great  discovery 
and  for  a  great  discoverer.  The  day  has 
gone  when  the  stock  arguments  of  incredulity 
are  strong  enough  to  grip  the  subject.  To 
assume  that  a  large  mass  of  our  respectable 
fellow-citizens  are  either  fools  or  knaves  no 
longer  quite  covers  the  case.  The  jugglery 
hypothesis,  too  often  a  sound  and  necessary 
one,  is  not  elastic  enough  to  stretch  over  the 
circuit ;  as  in  a  case  of  house-possession  per- 
sonally  known  to   the   writer  of  this  paper, 


218         THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY. 

which  was  carried  to  the  leading  prestidigi- 
tator of  the  day  for  his  professional  opinion, 
with  the  inquiry  :  Is  there  anything  in  your 
business  which  would  explain  these  occur- 
rences ?  "  "  No  !  "  was  the  ringing  answer, 
with  a  terrible  thump  of  the  conjurer's  hand 

upon  the  table.    "  No  !    And  by I  would 

not  stay  in  such  a  house  twenty-four  hours  !  " 

Science  has  her  superstitions  as  well  as 
faith  ;  it  is  the  first  of  these  to  be  supersti- 
tiously  afraid  of  superstition.  Only  with  the 
developed  courage  which  is  implied  in  perfect 
skill  are  the  tactics  of  truth  to  be  mastered. 
We  may  say  that  Science  at  the  bayonet's 
point,  before  the  fortress  of  Mystery,  is  put 
upon  her  mettle  at  last.  Too  unscholarly  has 
been  the  sneer  or  the  silence  ;  too  feeble  the 
attack ;  too  serious  have  been  the  defeats. 
The  moment  of  the  charge  has  come.  Most 
great  martial  crises  create  great  generals.  If 
ever  there  was  a  chance  for  one  in  the  history 
of  human  knowledge,  there  is  a  chance  for 
one  to-day,  and  here. 

Shall  the  power  which  could  classify  the 
kingdoms  of  the  earth  and  claim  the  glory  of 
them  be  thwarted  by  the  capacity  of  an  un- 


THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY.         219 

touched  dining-table  to  thump  a  man  against 
a  wall  ?  Is  a  "  brain-wave  "  more  unmanage- 
able than  an  ether-wave  ?  We  are  taught  that 
there  are  octaves  in  the  wave-lengths  of  light 
corresponding  to  octaves  in  sound-vibrations, 
and  that  the  spectrum  has  been  studied  for 
about  four  octaves  beyond  the  red  end,  and 
one  beyond  the  violet.  Is  this  a  less  mys- 
terious accomplishment  than  the  power  of  the 
human  will  to  act  as  a  substitute  for  anaesthe- 
sia in  a  surgical  operation  ?  Is  the  boldest 
conjecture  of  telepathy  more  stupendous  than 
the  telephone  Was  twelve  years  ago  ?  We 
smile  when  we  are  told  of  the  telegraphic 
battery  constructed  for  the  accommodation  of 
what  are  called  spirits  who  desire  to  employ 
the  Morse  alphabet.  There  are  probably  few 
readers  of  this  volume  who  would  go  beyond 
a  smile  in  regard  to  such  an  invention.  Yet, 
is  the  unknown  action  of  mind  on  mind  pos- 
sibly expressed  through  such  a  use  of  the  laws 
of  electricity  more  amazing  than  the  phono- 
graph from  which  we  are  to  hear  the  treasured 
voices  of  the  dead  or  absent  ? 

Whether  we  are  dealing  with  matter,  mind, 
or  spirit,  it  is  too  early  yet  in  the  process  of 


220         THE  PSYCHICAL   OPPORTUNITY. 

investigation  to  know.  It  is  not  too  early  to 
know  that  one  law  may  be  no  more  illegal 
than  another  law,  and  that  because  we  under- 
stand  the  conditions  of  one,  and  do  not  under- 
stand the  conditions  of  the  other,  is  no  more 
of  a  reason  why  the  other  should  not  exist, 
than  Franklin's  ignorance  of  the  value  of 
shares  in  the  Electric  Light  Company  of  New 
York  city,  to-day,  was  a  reason  for  not  put- 
ting up  the  first  lightning-rods.  It  is  not  too 
early  to  know  that  the  psychical  opportunity 
is  a  great  chance  for  honesty  and  liberality  of 
spirit,  for  originality  and  force  of  mind,  for 
attention,  for  patience,  for  reason,  and,  we 
may  say,  for  hope.  What  benefactors  to  their 
kind  will  they  be  who  shall  clutch  from  this 
mystery,  ancient  as  earth,  shadowy  as  dreams, 
and  sombre  as  fate,  the  substance  of  a  verified 
law ! 

Be  it  the  law  which  guides  the  telegraph, 
the  law  which  sways  an  audience,  the  law  by 
which  a  hand-pass  cures  a  headache,  the  law 
which  unites  the  thoughts  of  distant  friends, 
or  the  law  by  which  dumb  death  should  create 
a  vocabulary  for  deaf  life,  the  chance  to  for- 
mulate it  is  the  chance  for  a  great  achieve- 
ment.    Accomplished    or   defeated,   it   is   an 


THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY.         221 

achievement  for  scholarship  and  for  common- 
sense  to  undertake  with  a  sober,  dedicated 
spirit,  adequate  to  the  seriousness  of  the  con- 
sequences involved  in  success  or  failure.  We 
may  add,  what  is  sure  to  be  understood  by 
some  of  our  readers,  and  as  sure  not  to  be  by 
others,  that  it  is  an  achievement  asking  also 
for  the  higher  education  of  that  candid  and 
noble  power  imperfectly  called  spirituality  of 
nature.  He  who  has  enough  of  this  faculty 
to  respect  it  will  follow  our  meaning.  We 
need  not  tax  the  patience  of  him  who  has  not, 
by  here  emphasizing  the  relation  of  such  a 
power  to  the  scientific  method. 

In  physical  theory,  the  gap  between  the  de- 
velopment of  the  lower  and  higher  organiza- 
tions has  never  been  filled.  In  religious  belief, 
there  remains  an  insoluble  mystery  about  the 
doctrine  that  claims  to  mediate  between  God 
and  man.  In  psychical  speculation,  too,  shall 
we  expect  a  missing  link?  Will  the  conjunc- 
tive between  life  and  death  elude  us  ?  —  the 
combining  medium  of  soul  and  body  defy  us  ? 
When  we  have  a  psychical  system  lacking  no 
more  than  science  and  theology  lack,  we  may 
pause,  and  we  should  not  pause  till  then.  One 
need  not  be  a  Spencerian  in  philosophy,  to  cry 


222         THE  PSYCHICAL    OPPORTUNITY. 

with  Spencer  :  "  The  deepest  truth  we  can  get 
at  must  be  unaccountable." 

The  Darwin  of  the  science  of  the  soul  is  yet 
to  be.  He  has  a  large  occasion.  It  will  be 
found  greater  to  explain  the  dissolution  than 
the  evolution  of  the  race.  It  is  more  to  teach 
us  where  we  go  to  than  to  tell  us  what  we 
came  from.  From  the  "  Descent  "  to  the 
"  Destiny  "  of  man  is  the  natural  step.  The 
German  physicist  who  gave  his  book  the  su- 
preme title  of  "  The  Discovery  of  the  Soul" 
was  wiser  than  he  knew.  That  was  a  piercing 
satire  on  the  materialistic  philosophy  which 
suggested,  not  long  since,  that  mourners  here- 
after be  given  front  seats  at  geological  lec- 
tures, and  the  most  deeply  bereaved  provided 
with  chip-hammers  to  collect  specimens.  Older 
than  the  classic  of  St.  Pierre,  and  young  as 
the  anguish  of  yesterday,  is  the  moan  :  "  Since 
death  is  a  good,  and  since  Virginia  is  happy, 
I  would  die,  too,  and  be  united  to  Virginia." 

Science  has  given  us  a  past.  Too  long  has 
she  left  it  to  faith  to  give  us  a  future.  Hu- 
man love  cannot  be  counted  out  of  the  forces 
of  nature ;  and  earth-bound  human  knowledge 
turns  to  lift  its  lowered  eyes  toward  the  firma- 
ment of  immortal  life. 


•    VII. 

THE  PSYCHICAL  WAVE. 

Truth  is  terrible.  She  will  have  her  way. 
One  law  is  as  inexorable  as  another  law,  and 
the  mind  that  fails,  from  infatuation  with  one, 
to  keep  in  relation  to  another,  is  brought  up 
short,  somewhere,  by  the  very  constitution  of 
things. 

One  thinks  of  this  not  for  the  first  time 
nor  for  the  last  one,  but  explicitly,  in  watch- 
ing the  course  of  the  current  of  progress  with 
which  it  is  our  fortune  to  be  contemporaneous. 
No  alert  observation  would  deny  that  investi- 
gation of  psychical  phenomena  has  gone  above 
the  level  of  a  craze  or  a  fashion.  It  has 
reached  the  dignity  of  an  intellectual  current. 
All  momentum  has  its  equivalent  force.  What 
is  the  philosophy  working  beneath  the  psy- 
chical wave  ? 

When  Herbert  Spencer  wrote  the  famous 
pages   which    he    entitled    "  The   Rhythm   of 


224:  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

Motion,"  he  gave  to  the  busy  world  which  has 
no  time  to  be  scholarly,  but  which  is  eager  to 
follow  the  trail  of  scholarship  too  great  not  to 
be  comprehensible,  a  phrase  for  which  we  are 
all  deep  debtors.  This  term  expresses  better 
than  any  of  which  we  have  the  use,  the  nature 
of  one  of  the  most  powerful  laws  known  to  the 
universe  —  the  law  of  vibration.  Every  cre- 
ated thing  oscillates  ;  this  is  the  amount  of 
it.  Though  we  wrought  ourselves  blind  to 
ask  the  reason,  we  have  not  to  go  beyond  the 
timing  of  our  own  pulses  to  learn  the  fact. 
The  petty  beat  of  the  pendulum  in  the  kitchen 
clock  sways  within  the  majestic  diurnal  revo- 
lution of  the  globe.  The  wave  ebbs  upon  the 
shore ;  the  tide  flows  beneath  the  moon.  Your 
telephone  message  is  a  shallop  set  adrift  upon 
the  ripples  of  sound.  Poetry  uses  no  meta- 
phor when  it  speaks  of  the  floods  of  light. 
If  a  child  draw  the  tip  of  a  pencil  lightly 
across  a  paper  the  line  will  be  undulatory.  If 
a  cannon-ball  were  uninterrupted  by  any  im- 
peding body,  it  would  return  to  the  spot 
whence  it  started.  A  baby's  cry  rises  and 
drops  from  insistence  to  subsidence.  An 
American  storm,  spanning  the  continent  from 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  225 

Montana  to  Maine,  begins  as  a  "  blizzard " 
and  ends  as  a  zephyr.  A  weed  growing  at 
the  bottom  of  a  brook  undulates.  The  use  of 
the  telescope  teaches  that  every  pulsation  of 
the  heart  jars  the  room.  Both  lateral  and 
vertical  oscillations  beset  the  motion  of  a 
railway  train.  The  songs  that  muse  of  "  wind- 
ing rivers  "  sing  above  the  law  of  conflict  be- 
tween the  current  and  the  channel.  A  leaf 
trembles  in  the  wind,  and  the  climate  of  the 
earth  is  affected  by  changes  of  position  "  tak- 
ing twenty-one  thousand  years  to  complete." 
Sleep  visits  the  blessed  once  in  twenty-four 
hours,  and  awful  periodicities  control  the  jaws 
of  earthquakes  which  swallow  cities.  An  in- 
termittent fever  and  a  variable  star  obey  the 
same  authority.  Sunrise  and  sunset,  season 
and  season,  life  and  decay,  are  the  throbs  of 
one  mighty  circulation  poured  from  an  unseen 
Heart. 

These  things  we  are  taught  as  the  alphabet 
of  modern  philosophy.  We  are  told  that 
the  law  leans  over,  far  beyond  the  scope  of 
physics ;  that  the  human  mind,  like  the  ulti- 
mate atom,  serves  the  large  decree  ;  and  that 
human  experience  itself  is  a  slave  to  the  eter- 


226  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

nal  rhythm.  We  are  reminded  that  grief  and 
joy  and  hope  and  anguish  alternate  as  much 
as  the  budding  and  the  fading  of  a  wind- 
flower.  We  are  asked  to  observe  that  misery 
has  its  paroxysms  as  well  as  neuralgia  ;  and 
that  mourners  smile  because  they  have  wept, 
and  weep  again,  since  they  did  smile.  We  are 
reminded  that  crime  and  pestilence  pulsate  in 
epidemics  across  the  globe.  We  are  called 
upon  to  record  the  throbs  of  the  pendulum  of 
history,  whose  swing  sweeps  from  civilization 
to  ruin,  from  the  people  to  the  throne,  from 
tyranny  to  riot,  from  confusion  to  order,  from 
morality  to  madness,  from  atheism  to  bigotry, 
from  despair  to  faith. 

We  are  asked,  in  short,  to  see  for  ourselves, 
by  a  review  of  that  close  collation  of  facts 
which  the  philosophy  as  well  as  the  science 
of  our  day  delights  to  honor,  that  vibration  is 
the  condition  of  motion,  and  that  motion  is  the 
condition  of  life. 

But  we  are  asked  to  remember  vet  another 
thing.  The  figure  of  the  cone  of  history  is 
almost  as  old  as  historical  philosophy ;  but  the 
youngest  of  our  thinkers  would  fall  back  upon 
it,  who  told  us  to-day  that  spiral  law  holds 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  227 

over  or  holds  into  rliytlimic  law.  A  thing  or 
a  thought  works  to  and  fro,  but  that  is  not 
all ;  it  works  spirally  to  and  fro.  For  growth 
or  for  decline,  to  the  base  or  to  the  apex  —  in 
the  phrase  of  modern  thought,  to  evolution  or 
to  dissolution  —  it  is  in  the  nature  of  motion 
to  tend.  Rhythm  is  not  a  simple  affair.  It 
is  a  complication.  There  is  rhythm  within 
rhythm,  motion  over  against  motion ;  move- 
ment double,  quadruple,  complex  —  if  we  do 
not  say  infinite,  it  is  because  we  are  too  finite 
to  follow  the  coil. 

The  vibration  of  the  violin  string  seems  a 
simple  affair  of  molar  disturbance  producing 
sound-waves.  Who  shall  say  what  was  the 
rhythm  started  in  the  soul  of  the  peasant  who 
heard  Ole  Bull  play  in  a  tavern,  and,  amid  the 
hush  of  his  fellows  —  moved  beyond  them  all 
—  brought  his  hand  down  thunderously  upon 
a  table  and  cried  :  "  This  is  a  lie  I '''' 

Materialism  is  not  the  best  word  in  the 
world  to  define  an  aspect  of  modern  thought, 
for  which,  on  the  whole,  for  our  purposes, 
there  may  be  no  better.  It  stands,  at  least  in 
the  minds  of  most  of  us,  for  something  defi- 
nite, in  the   press  of  many   indefinite   views 


228  THE  PS  YCHICAL    WA  VE. 

as  to  the  nature  or  tlie  outcome  of  a  conflict 
which  is  sweeping  us  all  along,  soldier  and 
civilian,   whither   we   would,    or   whither   we 
would  not.     The  thing  which  is  represented 
in    a   measure   by   this    word    has   carried   a 
high  hand,  and  had  a  merry  day  of  it.     The 
age  has   succumbed  to  what  it  has  called  its 
tendency  as  thoroughly  as  a  hearty  boy  to  the 
measles.     We  have  had  it  hard.     It  has  been 
thought  a  feature  of  force  of  character  not  to 
believe  too  much.     Dilettante  doubt  has  made 
h7ic-a-hrac  of   the  gate  called  Beautiful  that 
guarded  the  temple.     All   the  iconoclasts  of 
wit   and  wisdom  have   hacked  at  the  shrine. 
To  be  learned,  it  has  been  understood,  was 
not   to   be   devout.     In   proportion    to   one's 
knowledge  one  failed  to  believe.     It  has  been 
the   great  effort  of   the   time    to  establish  a 
mathematical  equation  between  an  instructed 
mind  and  an  abandoned  faith.    The  mere  hold- 
ing of  certain  views  has  been  accepted  by  a 
powerful  class  of  thinkers  as  the  tattoo-mark  of 
intellectual  barbarism.    Did  you  not  know  that 
an  immortal  soul   was   old-fashioned?     Have 
you  not  understood  that  God  is  out  of  date  ? 
Then  go  to.     Teach  your  Sunday-school.   Join 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  229 

a  female  prayer  -  meeting.  Write  religious 
verses.  Leave  knowledge  to  science  and  truth 
to  men. 

This  has  been  the  spirit  of  the  times,  and  it 
must  be  admitted  that  it  has  been  a  successful 
spirit.  Precious  thing  after  precious  thing 
has  crumbled  before  it.  Pearls  have  been 
dimmed.  Hopes  have  been  hurled  from  great 
heights  to  heavy  depths.  Daylight  has  dark- 
ened. It  has  gone  hard  with  us  to  keep  the 
faith-cells  in  our  brains.  Dear  beliefs  of  souls 
dearer  and  better  than  our  own  have  slipped 
out  of  our  yearning  arms  as  the  dead  slip 
into  the  coffin.  Many  an  honest  and  ear- 
nest man  in  the  last  decade  or  two  has  lost 
out  of  his  faith  what  he  would  give  his  life  to 
regain,  and  call  himself  happy  at  the  price. 
Silent  hours  wrung  from  busy  lives  will  an- 
swer; secrets  of  reticent  hearts  will  lift  up 
mute  faces  to  the  question :  Went  the  day  sore 
with  ye  ? 

We  have  looked  on  while  disrespect  for  the 
unseen,  in  the  name  of  science,  has  torn  at  the 
vitals  of  everything  which  makes  life  worth 
living,  or  death  a  great  opportunity.  We 
have  endured  while  murder  in  the  name  of 


230  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

surgery  has  been  done  upon  the  fair  body  of 
truth.  We  have  suffered  while  the  sweet 
reasonableness  of  human  hope  has  writhed  un- 
der the  scalpel  of  its  vivisectors.  There  has 
been  no  anaesthetic  for  that  anguish.  Ask. 
Any  man  will  tell  you  who  has  known  it. 

They  had  their  day,  and  they  used  it.  We 
learned  that  we  were  not  men,  but  proto- 
plasm. We  learned  that  we  were  not  spirits, 
but  chemical  combinations.  We  learned  that 
we  had  laid  up  treasure  tn  the  wrong  places. 
We  learned  that  the  Drama  of  Hamlet  and 
the  Ode  to  Immortality  were  secretions  of  the 
gray  matter  of  the  brain.  We  learned  that 
guilt  was  nothing  but  the  law  of  heredity. 
We  learned  that  one's  prehistoric  amoeba  (if 
anybody)  should  be  blamed  for  one's  private 
vices.  We  learned  that  beyond  the  fugitive 
slaves  which  we  call  the  joys  of  this  life,  and 
the  disproportionate  pains  which  are  their 
masters,  we  had  not  an  expectation.  Going- 
hounded  down  to  death,  and  crying  out  for 
the  emancipation  of  eternal  happiness,  we 
learned  that  we  had  not  a  hope  to  our  names. 

We  learned  —  no,  no,  thank  God,  we  never 
learned  to  lay  the  beloved  of  our  lives  at  the 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  231 

bottom  of  a  grave  and  leave  them  there.  We 
have  never  come  without  a  pause  to  the  end  of 
the  Apostate's  Creed  :  — 

"  I  believe  in  the  Chaotic  Nebula,  self-existent 
Evolver  of  heaven  and  earth  ...  in  the  disunion 
of  saints  .  .  .  the  dispersion  of  the  body,  and  in 
Death  Everlasting.     Amen." 

The  modern  philosophy  has  at  one  point 
prepared  itself  to  fall  a  victim  to  its  own 
logic.  It  has  given  registered  bonds  to  the 
law  of  rhythm.  It  has  omitted  to  remember 
that  the  history  of  all  human  belief  is  the  his- 
tory of  oscillation,  and  that  it  must  itself  take 
its  turn  and  meet  its  fate,  like  other  human 
pulsations.  The  creed  of  negation,  the  cultus 
of  death,  has  risen  to  its  crest,  and  toppled. 
There  came  to  our  ears  a  wail  of  despair  for 
the  race  at  which  the  stoutest  trembled.  Was 
it  the  roar  of  the  ocean  of  all  time  ?  Nay ; 
look  abroad  ;  it  was  but  the  rustle  of  a  brain- 
wave on  the  shore.  The  time  is  at  hand.  The 
moment  of  the  ebb  has  come.  This  is  the 
law.  They  who  took  away  from  us  the  only 
hopes  that  made  existence  anything  else  than 
a  stupendous  tyranny  perpetrated  upon  a  de- 
frauded race,  shall  see  their  dark  work  come 


232  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

surging  back  from  the  cap  to  the  trough.  This 
is  the  law.  Long  have  they  taught  us  the 
rights  of  such  autocracy.  Well  have  they 
worshiped  the  Law  of  Nature.  In  the  way  of 
social  position,  they  would  take  nothing  less 
for  it  than  the  Throne  of  God.  By  the  creeds 
of  their  own  deeds  they  shall  be  judged,  or 
there  is  no  conclusion  in  logic  and  no  unity 
in  history.  In  an  old  French  picture  demons 
toss  a  lost  soul  from  one  to  the  other,  like  a 
ball.  Truth,  which  fares  hard  in  an  untruth- 
ful world,  meets  here  a  fate  as  restless.  This 
is  the  law. 

In  the  parlance  of  philosophy,  we  are  told 
that  the  force  embodied  as  momentum  in  a 
given  direction  cannot  be  destroyed  ;  and  that, 
even  if  it  disappear,  or  seem  to  disappear,  it 
reappears  in  the  form  of  reaction  on  the  re- 
tarding body.  The  easy  illustration  of  the 
tuning-fork  is  used  to  remind  us  that  "  as 
much  force  as  the  finger  exerts  in  pulling 
the  prong  aside,  so  much  opposing  force  is 
brought  into  play  among  the  cohering  parti- 
cles. Hence,  when  the  prong  is  liberated,  it  is 
urged  back  by  a  force  equal  to  that  used  in- 
deflecting  it." 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  233 

The  materialistic  sound-wave  has  turned. 
This,  he  that  slumbereth  can  hear.  It  will  be 
nothing  new  in  human  story  if  we  are  called 
upon  to  observe  that  the  ebb  is  at  least  as 
great  as  the  flow.  The  exerting  force,  we 
must  remember,  not  only  meets  its  opposing 
force,  it  creates  its  opposing  force.  This  is 
the  law. 

It  has  been  written  of  the  father  of  Goethe 
that  he  had  no  spiritual  elements  in  him  by 
which  his  weak  points  could  be  transformed 
into  strong  ones.  What  is  true  of  a  given 
type  of  character  is  true  of  a  corresponding 
type  of  belief.  In  the  whole  Agnostic  direc- 
tion of  motion  there  lacked  the  spiritual  ele- 
ment by  which  its  weak  points  could  be  con- 
verted into  strong  ones,  thus  to  stand  out 
against  the  crisis  of  the  ebb  and  be  carried 
over  into  the  next  vibration  in  a  form  likely 
to  perpetuate  the  vitality  of  the  last. 

I  think  one  may  venture  the  assertion  that 
the  ruling  philosophy  of  our  day  has  done 
nothing  more  important  than  the  arousing  of 
a  tremendous  resistance  to  itself.  This  re- 
sistance promises  to  be,  at  the  least,  as  pow- 
erful as  the  force  which  it  resists.     The  inex- 


234  THE  PSYCHICAL   WAVE. 

orable  rhythm  has  begun  in  the  motion  of 
thought.  A  theory  should  be  a  gun.  It  should 
never  shoot  without  calculating  on  the  recoil. 
The  materialist  did  not  calculate  upon  the 
recoil ;  and  the  recoil  has  come.  In  the  hun- 
ter's phrase,  his  weapon  has  kicked. 

It  has  been  said  of  Lessing  that  he  knew 
but  one  system  of  tactics,  which  was  with 
fixed  bayonet  to  run  his  rival  through  the 
body.  "  He  made  no  prisoners.  When  the 
work  was  over  there  was  nothing  left  of  his 
antagonist."  The  skepticism  of  our  day  has 
made  too  many  prisoners ;  and  her  prisoners 
are  escaping  beneath  her  eyes. 

The  interesting  thing,  however,  about  the 
whole  matter  is  the  point  of  the  compass  at 
which  the  dungeon  walls  have  been  broken. 
Or,  to  keep  to  our  figure,  it  is  the  direction  of 
motion  in  which  the  rhythm  has  swung.  One 
who  has  thought  up  to  a  certain  point  on  these 
questions  will  not  hesitate  to  say  that  the  psy- 
chical wave  upon  which  we  have  been  caught 
is  the  outcome  —  direct,  logical,  and  legal  — 
of  the  physical  wave  in  which  we  have  been 
buried.  This  is  the  law.  It  has  taken  an  ex- 
traordinary form.     This  is  the  curiosity. 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  235 

We  have  been  taught  that  rhythm  is  a 
complication  ;  that  there  is  rhythm  within 
rhythm,  motion  lateral  and  vertical,  movement 
on  an  axis,  and  movement  in  an  orbit  and 
movement  in  a  spiral ;  in  short,  that  oscillation 
is  not  a  simple  affair  of  two  strokes.  The 
vibration  may  start  where  it  is  not  expected. 
The  pulsation  may  hit  athwart  where  logic  was 
not  great  enough  to  look  for  it.  This  is  pre- 
cisely what  has  happened. 

If  any  of  the  priests  and  prophets  of  the 
materialistic  philosophy  had  been  told  fifteen 
years  ago,  while  they  sat  precipitating  our 
souls  into  a  sub-acetate  in  their  laboratories, 
or  offering  us  little  icicles  from  the  Glacial 
Period  to  replace  the  Easter  lilies  on  the  new- 
made  grave,  that  more  than  one  of  the  fore- 
most scientists  of  Great  Britain  would  be  to- 
day avowed  believers  in  the  psychical  nature 
of  obscure  phenomena,  such  as  it  has  hith- 
erto been  considered  good  intellectual  form  to 
turn  over  to  the  juggler  and  the  medium  — 
but  imagination  cannot  struggle  beyond  the 
learned  smile  with  which  such  a  suggestion 
would  have  been  bowed  out.  On  the  certif- 
icate of  the  scientific  world,  mad   Cassandra 


236  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

would  have  been  incarcerated  in  an  institu- 
tion offering  all  the  modern  improvements 
in  alienism,  had  she  foretold  a  vibration  of 
thought  like  that  of  which  this  fact  is  the 
sonometer. 

The  burliest  positivist  is  not  more  puzzled 
at  the  present  growth  among  us  of  the  psy- 
chical life  than  the  religious  believer.  As  lit- 
tle as  it  was  to  be  conceded  that  men  who  had 
been  instructed  in  the  physiological  basis  of 
life  could  ever  interest  themselves  in  the  con- 
veyance of  an  impression  from  one  mind  to 
another  mind  without  the  intervention  of  phys- 
ical media;  so  little  was  it  to  be  dreamed 
that  the  rescue  of  faith  should  be  attempted 
through  a  table-tipper,  or  a  trance-subject,  or 
an  Oriental  mystic.  Priest  and  physicist  are 
at  one  in  their  perplexity.  He  who  sat  down 
to  rest  from  his  labors  in  the  belief  that  he 
had  slain  the  chimera  of  the  human  soul  with 
his  chip-hammer,  and  he  who  has  been  de- 
voutly praying  Heaven  to  arrest  the  chij)- 
hammer  by  a  miraculous  revival  of  religion, 
are  alike  conscious  of  surprise.  It  is  not 
within  the  organism  of  the  church,  it  is  not 
within  the  social  ranks  of  faith,  that  the  pen- 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  237 

dulum  has  begun  to  swing.  If,  because  of 
praying  for  it,  Heaven  knows  —  that  is  a  ques- 
tion for  supernatural  science  to  answer  —  yet 
not  in  the  direction  of  praying  for  it  has  the 
pulsation  started.  Outside  of  all  organism, 
rank,  faith,  and  direction,  the  resisting  force 
has  sprung.  If  we  were  using  the  military 
figure,  we  should  say  it  is  a  flank  movement. 
From  the  oscillatory  point  of  view,  it  is  a  coun- 
ter-current. So  unique  is  it,  so  apparently 
hostile  to  undulatory  law,  while  yet  so  subtly 
obedient  to  it,  that  we  might  call  it  a  tide-rip. 
At  any  rate,  here  we  are.  Carried  along 
upon  a  roller  of  reaction  from  the  explicit, 
the  world  is  well-nigh  going  over  a  cataract 
after  the  mysterious.  Silken  society  s-eeks 
what  it  is  pleased  to  call  the  esoteric,  as  it 
would  seek  a  new  waltz  or  an  original  dinner- 
card.  We  hear  of  a  Chela  served  up  for 
lunches,  as  if  he  were  the  last  new  poet,  or  a 
humming-bird  on  the  half-walnut  shell.  A 
live  Theosophist  is  a  Godsend  in  a  dead  drawl- 
ing-room. A  brother  from  the  resources  of 
Indian  occultism  carries  us  in  chains.  We 
urge  him  to  throw  a  rope  into  the  sky,  climb 
up  and  take  it  with  him ;  it  is  a  disappoint- 


238  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

ment  if  the  Axminster  carpet  does  not  serve 
as  hopeful  a  basis  for  this  purpose  as  his 
native  jungle. 

What  is  dubbed  the  Mind-cure  runs  riot 
even  among  people  who  really  have  minds  to 
be  cured.  One  is  waylaid  upon  corners  by 
one's  educated  friends,  and  besought  to  take 
one's  personal  share  of  the  universal  disorder 
to  a  woman  who  sits  with  the  back  of  her 
chair  against  the  back  of  yours,  and  tells  you 
that  there  is  (like  the  distinguished  Mrs. 
Harris)  "  no  such  a  person "  as  your  pet 
bronchitis,  or  the  sick-headache  inherited  from 
your  grandfather.  It  is  not  to  the  purpose  of 
this  paper  to  assert  or  to  deny  the  cures  re- 
ported to  be  wrought  by  this  form  of  mysti- 
cism, but  only  to  enumerate  the  form  in  its 
place  among  the  others  as  significant  of  the 
present  state  of  things.  In  some  parts  of  our 
country  it  has  had  a  significance  truly  enor- 
mous and  almost  incredible. 

Telepathy,  the  new  word  for  the  old  thing, 
gives  us  plenty  of  occupation.  We  seek  to 
establish  the  telephonic  connections  of  the 
unaided  human  mind,  as  eagerly  as  Professor 
Bell  fights  for  his  right  and  his  patents.     Sep- 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  239 

arated  friends  make  appointments  to  meet 
in  dreams,  or  to  "  break  -  house "  from  the 
body,  and  take  twilight  journeys  together  in 
the  liberated  spirit.  Our  sympathetic  coin- 
cidences are  brought  out  and  trotted  down  the 
psychical  race-course.  Our  family  ghosts  are 
beckoned  from  their  attics  and  feted  hand- 
somely for  the  first  time  in  their  lives.  If  we 
are  the  happy  possessors  of  a  genuine  life- 
apparition,  we  try  the  theories  of  brain-waves 
upon  it,  as  a  costumer  drapes  a  dummy ;  and, 
if  the  garment  fits,  so  much  the  better  for  the 
dummy. 

The  spiritualistic  seance  has  risen  from  the 
bottom  to  the  top.  It  floats  upon  the  smooth 
surface  of  society  easily.  Mediums  have  their 
fashions,  like  bonnets.  They  are  put  on  or  oif 
as  the  season  or  the  mode  decrees.  Personal 
beauty  or  a  gentle  manner  goes  well  to  their 
capital.  In  parlors  to  which  they  are  unaccus- 
tomed they  materialize  flowers  and  play  upon 
invisible  violins.  Circles  strange  to  the  oc- 
cupation tip  tables  with  the  gas  down,  and 
shudder  when  the  medium  shrieks,  or  the  fin- 
ger-touches of  the  invisible  stroke  the  paling 
cheek. 


240  TEE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

Beneath  these  popular  amusements  thou- 
sands of  men  and  women  are  paying  their  two 
dollars  a  "  communication  "  for  messages  from 
their  dead,  and  carrying  spirit  -  photographs 
happily  identified  by  the  mourners  in  lockets 
on  their  hearts. 

On  the  other  hand,  quietly,  and  above  them 
all,  the  students  of  the  subject  sit  hard  at 
work,  tabulating  authentic  marvels,  elaborat- 
ing diagrams  of  digit-tests,  and  inventing  com- 
bined die-throwers  and  tally-keepers  to  prove 
or  to  disprove  the  existence  of  the  transfer- 
ence of  thought  without  physical  agency ;  in- 
vestigating hypnotism,  mesmerism,  the  witch- 
hazel,  apparitions,  trances,  and  the  rest  of  it, 
in  their  own  fashion  and  with  their  own  ad- 
mirable thoroughness  ;  but  divided  among 
themselves  in  what  we  may  call  the  prejudice 
of  the  result,  as  much  as  the  Church  itself  is 
split  asunder  on  the  vital  differences  of  reli- 
gious creed.  Thus  and  here  we  are.  I  would 
not  be  understood  as  flinging  the  toss  of  a 
phrase  against  any  of  these  forms  of  the  pre- 
vailing interest  in  psychical  facts  ;  as  though 
one  could  say  of  any  one  of  them,  the  maddest 
or  the    silliest,  that   there    is    nothing   in    it. 


e 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  241 

There  is  something  in  them  all.  Let  it  be- 
come the  task  rather  than  the  whim  of  the 
times  to  find  out  what. 

Now  as  we  have  already  noticed,  no  one  for- 
gets that  this  sort  of  thing  has  happened,  in 
varying  degrees,  before.  Mystery  is  as  old 
as  life.  The  medium  of  New  York  and  the 
Witch  of  Endor  are  of  one  family.  Magic 
and  marvel  are  as  ancient  as  the  fire  whicli 
came  down  from  heaven  and  "  respected  "  the 
burnt-offering  of  Abel.  Cotton  Mather  took 
a  bewitched  girl  home  to  exorcise  her,  and 
Mesmer  did  not  hesitate  to  claim  that  for 
twenty  years  he  had  magnetized  the  sun. 
Superstition  has  swollen  fact  and  curiosity 
has  gone  mad  over  the  phenomenal,  many  a 
day  and  oft.  The  world  has  never  been  able 
to  get  away  from  the  inexplicable  and  the 
unseen.  The  point  of  chief  interest  now  is 
that  the  scientific  method  meant  she  should. 
Its  apostles  were  to  have  changed  all  that. 
Nothing  was  more  to  be  expected.  It  was  a 
part  of  the  new  Gospel.  In  depriving  us  of 
hope  they  were  to  rid  us  of  superstition,  and 
the  result  was  counted  worth  the  cost. 

Let  it,  on  the  contrary,  be  noted  that  the 


242  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

opposite  has  definitely  happened.  One  would 
wish  to  give  the  emphasis  of  under-statement 
to  a  point  like  this,  in  saying  that  it  has  been 
reserved  for  the  scientific  age  to  experience 
such  an  uprising  of  forces  not  yet  amenable  to 
science,  hitherto  scorned  by  science,  and  wholly 
at  odds  with  what  has  been  the  spirit  of  sci- 
ence up  to  this  time,  as  must  constitute  in  it- 
self a  phenomenon  when  witnessed  in  a  period 
of  such  intelligence  and  incredulity. 

From  the  last  spot  where  danger  was 
dreamed  of  the  recoil  has  started.  From  the 
very  reservoirs  of  superstition  the  flood  has 
come.  Not  of  the  might  of  men,  not  of  reason, 
nor  of  faith,  the  current  has  swung  into  the 
channel.  From  the  illegal,  the  unclassified, 
from  the  despised  and  rejected  —  as  before 
in  the  great  awakenings  of  life  —  the  power 
pours.  A  Greater  than  the  method  of  the 
age  is  in  it.  Boimd  in  the  flesh  of  a  philos- 
ophy without  a  hope  and  without  a  spirit,  we 
see  that  there  has  come  upon  us  a  deep  move- 
ment of  invisible  forces  toward  invisible  truths. 
This  is  the  motion  of  rhythm.  This  is  the  re- 
sistance of  reaction.    This  is  the  law. 

One  of  the  popular  romances  of   the  day 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  243 

deftly  recognizes  these  facts  in  the  tale  of  a 
city  beleaguered  by  the  dead,  who  drive  the 
living  beyond  the  walls  and  close  the  gates 
upon  them,  because  they  have  not  perceived 
"  the  true  significance  of  life." 

Louis  Quafcorze  went  one  day  to  chapel  and 
listened  to  the  court  clergyman,  who,  in  a  mo- 
ment of  forgetfulness,  ventured  to  make  the 
rash  assertion,  — 

"We  must  all  die." 

The  king  made  an  impatient  movement. 

"  Yes,  sire,"  hastily  interpolated  the  poor 
preacher,  "  almost  all  !  " 

The  chief  trouble  with  the  materialistic 
philosophy  seems  to  have  been  that  we  must 
almost  all  die.  Death  is  a  fact  which  has  not 
been  created  for  the  main  purpose  of  confirm- 
ing this  philosophy  in  those  more  persuasive 
features  by  which  truth  appeals  to  the  human 
reason.  The  theory  which  shuts  us  into  our 
coffins,  screws  the  lid  down,  and  says,  "  Now 
get  out  if  you  can  !  "  lacks  certain  elements 
of  the  permanently  pleasing  or  convincing  to 
which  mankind  are  still  sensitive. 

Death  is  either  a  glorious  chance  or  it  is  an 
awful  outrage.     To  every  hope  that  leans  or 


244  THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE. 

leaps  beyond  it,  they  shall  be  bound  over  who 
wrenched  that  hope  away  from  us.  Every 
man  who  has  laid  his  dearest  dead  away  in 
the  dust  and  ashes  of  the  spirit  of  the  age, 
every  heart  that  has  known  the  isolation  of  a 
lost  belief  in  the  unseen,  every  uncomforted 
and  comfortless  lifting  of  life  out  of  which 
faith  has  departed,  every  untold  pang,  every 
ghastly  terror,  every  bitter  tear,  all  frost-bitten 
tenderness  and  reverence  and  human  lowliness 
of  heart,  and  happy  looking  for  blessed,  bet- 
ter things  to  be  —  these,  all  these,  to  the  ut- 
termost, shall  go  to  swell  the  great  receding 
wave.  Force  is  not  lost.  The  molecular  dis- 
turbance of  despair,  when  it  comes  to  the  ebb, 
shall  go,  over  to  form  the  rising  tide  of  hope. 

By  this  way  or  by  that,  from  superstition, 
or  from  science,  or  from  faith,  or  from  philos- 
ophy, with  the  impartiality  of  all  profound 
human  movements,  the  oscillation  will  take 
care  of  itself  ;  but  it  will  come. 

We  have  not  all  of  us  the  auditory  nerve  of 
the  great  musician  who,  at  the  age  of  four,  in- 
sisted that  he  heard  the  blue-bells  ring ;  but 
an  ear  less  fine  can  hear  strange  harmonies  in 
the  restless  air  to-day. 


THE  PSYCHICAL    WAVE.  245 

Seek  it  as  they  will  —  if  by  sage  or  seer, 
though  in  folly  or  in  wisdom  —  it  is  not  to 
be  denied  that  men  are  concentrating  their 
curiosity,  their  enthusiasm,  and  their  research 
npon  the  preservation  of  the  human  soul. 

It  is  impossible  to  avoid  the  question :  Is 
this,  too,  another  wave  to  burst  in  bubbles  on 
the  long  shore  ?  But  it  is  reasonable  to  ask 
if  it  may  not  be  the  swirl  of  the  whirlpool 
whose  spiral  motion  (such  is  the  law)  fathoms 
the  depths  of  truth,  and,  by  the  protective 
power  of  the  spiritual  element,  carries  the 
diver  who  dares  within  reach  of  the  buried 
treasure. 


RETURN       CIRCULATION  DEPARTMENT 
JOmi^       202  Main  Library 


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Renewals  and  recharges  may  be  mode  4  days  prior  to  due  dote 

DUE   AS  STAMPED  BELOW 

moT?- 

-Ouiq  v-vi 

RECCIR.JUL22  77 

• 

FORM  NO.  DD  6, 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA,  BERKE 
BERKELEY,  CA  94720 


7 

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236 


RARIES 


DUE  AS  STAMPED  BELOW 


MAY  4   1988 


